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-^          PRINCETON,  N.  J.          -^ 

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BR  85  .P53  1882 

Phelps,  Austin,  1820-1890. 

My  portfolio 

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MY    PORTFOLIO 


A    COLLECTION    OF    ESSAYS 


BT 


AUSTIN    PHELPS,  D.D. 

LATE   PROFESSOR  IN  ANDOVER  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY,  AUTHOR 

OF  *•  MEN  AND  BOOKS  "  AND  "  THE  THEORY 

OF  PREACHING" 


NEW  YORK 
CHAELES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1882 


Copyright  et 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 

1882. 


iFranfilin  |&rc?^ : 

RAND,    AVERY,    AND   COMPANY, 
BOSTON. 


PrillTGE'     ■'      1.^ 
titC.  OCT  loo/ 

THSOLOGIdW 

PEEFACE. 


The  papers  here  republished  are  a  selection  of  arti- 
cles printed  during  the  last  few  years  in  the  columns 
of  "The  Congregationalist,"  "The  Independent," 
"The  Christian  Union,"  and  "The  Sunday  School 
Times."  The  reception  which  has  been  given  to  them 
encourages  me  to  believe  that  then-  usefulness  may  be 
extended  in  their  present  form. 

A  minister  who  is  the  son  of  a  minister  finds  no 
other  element  in  his  professional  training  so  valuable 
as  the  influence,  obvious  or  latent,  of  his  father.  The 
mental  life-stream  flows  from  father  to  son  with  a 
more  electric  continuity  than  is  often  realized  in  any 
other  profession.  The  consequent  sense  of  filial  obli- 
gation grows  more  profound  with  increasing  years.  It 
is  with  this  consciousness  of  the  very  large  place  held 
in  my  own  professional  life  by  the  colloquial  instruc- 
tions of  my  father,  that  I  have  given  to  his  remarkable 
ministry  the  first  portion  of  this  volume. 

AUSTIN  PHELPS. 
Andover  Theological  Semenaby. 
September,  1882. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Genekatioist.    I.  .  1 

II.  A  Pastok  of  the  Last  Generation.    II.  14 

III.   A  Pastoe  of  the  Last  Generation.    III.  26 
lY.  The   Eights   of   Believers    in   Ancient 

Creeds.    1 38 

V.  The   Rights   of   Believers    in    Ancient 

Creeds.    II 47 

YI.   The  Biblical  Doctrine  of  Retribution  .  58 
YII.   The  Puritan  Theory  of  Amusements      .  GQ- 
YIII.  The  Christian  Theory  of  Aiviusements  .  74-" 
^IX.  Is    Card-Playing    a   Christian    Amuse- 
ment?       80 

X.  The  Question  of  Sunday  Cars  ...  88 
SI.  Woman-Suffrage    as    judged    by    the 

Working  of  ISTegro-Suffrage  .        ,        .  94   ' 
XII.  Reform    in    the    Political    Status    of 

Women 105-- 

XIII.   The  Length  of  Sermons      .        .        .       .117 
'  XIY.   The  Calvinistic  Theory  of  Preaching,  123  ' 
XY.   The  Theology  of  "The  Marble  Faun,"  130'^' 
7  XYI.  The  Debt  of  the  Nation  to  New  Eng- 
land         140  "^ 

V  XYII.  Ought  the  Pulpit  to  ignore  Spiritual- 
ism ?        150 

V 


yi  Contents. 

^HAPTER  PAGE 
XVIII.    How    SHALL     THE     PULPIT    TREAT    SPIRITU- 
ALISM ? IGl 

>/^XIX.  Foreign  and  Home  Missions  as  seen  by 

Candidates  for  the  Ministry        .        .    172 

''    XX.  Foreign   Missions,  their   Eange  of  Ap- 
peal for  Missionaries  limited      .        .    181 
XXI.   Congregation ALiSTS  and  Presbyterians: 

A  Plea  for  Union 191 

XXII.   Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians; 

Methods  of  Union 199 

XXIII.  The  Preaching  of  Albert  Barnes  .        .    205 

XXIV.  A  Vacation  with  Dr.  Bushnell       .        .    219 
XXV.   Prayer   viewed    in   the   Light    of    the 

Christian  Consciousness  ....  230 

XXVI.  Intercessory  Prayer 239 

XXVII.   Hints  Auxiliary  to  Faith  in  Prayer     .  244 

XXVIII.   The  Vision  of  Christ 250 

XXIX.   The  Cross  in  the  Door        ....  254 
'^   XXX.  The   Premature   Closing    of    a    Life's 

Work 25S' 

XXXI.  What   do  we   know  of   the  Heavenly 

Life? 271 


MT   POETFOLIO. 


My  Portfolio. 


I. 

A  PASTOR  OP  THE  LAST  GENERATION. 

PART  I. 

When  a  man  of  God,  who  has  been  blessed' 
in  his  work  above  the  average  of  ministers,  out- 
lives his  own  generation,  and  the  "cloud"  of 
extreme  old  age  has  "  received  him  out  of  our 
sight,"  may  not  filial  reverence  be  pardoned  in  its 
desire  to  tell  the  living,  and  specially  the  youthful, 
ministry  what  manner  of  man  he  was?  Thus 
would  I  pay  my  last  earthly  tribute  to  my  vener- 
able father,  by  speaking  of  him  to  my  younger 
brethren  and  my  late  pupils. 

The  Rev.  Eliakim  Phelps,  D.D.,  died  on  the 
twenty-ninth  day  of  December,  1880,  at  the  resi- 
dence of  one  of  his  sons  in  Weehawken,  N.J.,  at 
the  age  of  ninety  jems  and  nine  months.  He 
was  of  English  Puritan  descent  through  both 
father  and  mother.  His  was  the  seventh  genera- 
tion of  the  family  name  in  this  country.      The 

1 


2  My  Portfolio. 

first,  the  Hon.  William  Phelps,  emigrated  only 
ten  years  after  the  sailing  of  "  The  Mayflower." 
That  Hon.  William  the  family  hold  in  great  rev- 
erence. He  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  colony 
which  marched  from  Dorchester  through  the  un- 
broken wilderness  to  found  the  town  of  Windsor 
in  Connecticut,  in  1635.  There  he  became  a  man 
of  mark,  as  Stiles's  "-  History  "  says,  in  both  Church 
and  State.  He  was  one  of  the  eight,  who,  by 
authority  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  con- 
stituted the  first  legislative  and  judicial  body  of 
the  infant  settlements  of  Connecticut. 

The  religious  and  political  heritage  of  the  fam- 
ily may  be  inferred  from  the  fact,  that  several  of 
them  received  grants  of  land  from  Oliver  Crom- 
well, and  that  John,  a  younger  brother  of  the 
pioneer  William,  was  secretary  to  the  Protector 
in  1654.  At  the  Restoration  he  fled  to  Connecti- 
cut, where  he  lived  in  hiding,  as  the  family  legend 
reads,  with  the  regicides  Whalley  and  Goffe. 
Afterwards  he  went  to  Switzerland,  and  died  at 
Vevay.  Such  were  the  ancestral  memories  which 
pervaded  the  home  of  my  father's  childhood.  They 
gave  him  an  almost  intolerant  antipathy  to  prelacy 
in  all  forms.  Grim  ancestors  from  the  bar  of  Lord 
Jeffreys  looked  out  through  all  his  opinions  of 
church  government.  He  took  great  satisfaction 
in  the  fact  that  the  blood  of  men  persecuted  by 
Laud  and  Strafford  ran  in  his  veins. 

His  father  was  a  plain  farmer  in  Hampshire 
County,  Massachusetts;  but  he  was  one   of  the 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation.  3 

natural  cliiefs  so  often  found  in  New-En al a iul 
towns,  whose  force  of  character  lifts  them  into 
leadership  in  all  local  affiiirs.  He  was  the  per- 
petual selectman,  moderator,  counselor,  referee, 
representative  in  the  "  Great  and  General  Court," 
as  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  was  then  re- 
spectfully entitled  in  the  nomenclature-  of  the 
hills.  He  represented  Belchertown  in  that  body 
for  sixteen  successive  years.  He  bore  striking 
resemblance  in  person  and  character  to  the  Hon. 
Jeremiah  Mason,  late  of  the  Boston  bar. 

One  of  the  earliest  and  latest  impressions  I 
received  of  my  father  was  that  of  his  pardonable, 
though  sometimes  amusing,  pride  of  family.  Par- 
donable, because  their  knightly  escutcheon,  so 
dear  to  English  blood ;  and  their  descent  in  the 
shadowy  past  from  the  Italian  "Welfs," — the 
German  "  Guelphs  "  of  historic  fame,  —  and  their 
connection  thus  with  the  regnant  house  of  Hano- 
ver on  the  throne  of  Great  Britain ;  and  the  peril- 
ous service  of  one  of  them  in  high  office  near  the 
person  of  Cromwell;  and  their  kindred,  in  the 
person  of  my  father's  grandmother,  with  Lady  Jane 
Grey,  whose  name  she  bore, — were  all  merged 
and  submerged,  in  his  thoughts,  in  the  one  more 
than  royal  distinction,  that,  as  far  back  as  the 
family  name  could  be  traced  in  historic  record, 
every  one  in  his  own  branch  of  it  had  been  either  a 
minister  or  other  dignitary  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
It  was  a  life-long  cause  of  gratulation  to  him 
that  he  inherited  the  blood  of  eight  generations 


4  My  Portfolio, 

of  Christian  ministers  and  deacons.  This  fact  I 
have  known  ever  since  I  can  remember.  The  gew- 
gaws of  ancestral  fame  before  mentioned  I  did  not 

o 

hear  of  till  I  was  near  manhood ;  and  some  of  them 
I  then  learned  not  from  him,  but  from  the  comments 
of  an  English  visitor  on  our  family  door-plate. 

I  have  never  known  a  man  —  I  have  known  a 
few  women  —  who  had  a  more  profound  reverence 
than  he  had  for  the  office  and  work  of  a  Christian 
pastor.  To  him  they  were  above  all  other  digni- 
ties on  earth.  He  honestly  believed  that  the  pas- 
toral office  had  no  superior.  He  refused  to  advise 
my  exchange  of  a  pastoral  pulpit  for  a  professor- 
ship at  Andover.  When  he  called  on  Gen.  Jack- 
son, then  President  of  the  United  States,  his 
associates  were  amused  at  the  stately  repose  with 
which  he  greeted  the  nation's  head.  To  be  a 
preacher  of  the  gospel  was  a  loftier  honor  than  to 
be  a  prince  of  the  blood-royal.  So  pervasive  was 
this  conviction  in  the  atmosphere  of  his  household, 
that  I  distinctly  remember  my  resolve,  before  I 
was  four  years  old,  that  I  would  become  a  minis- 
ter ;  not  so  much  because  the  ministry  was  my 
father's  guild,  as  because  he  had  taught  me  noth- 
ing above  that  to  which  ambition  could  aspire. 
Was  not  ours  the  house  of  Aaron,  and  ours  the 
tribe  of  Levi? 

In  a  New-England  inland  town  three-quarters 
of  a  century  ago,  it  was  a  decree  fore-ordained, 
tliat  such  a  youth  as  he  was  should  find  or  make 
his  way  to  the  college  and  the  pulpit.     It  was  one 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation,  5 

of  the  prerogatives  of  a  Congregational  pastor 
to  foresee  the  predestined  clergymen  among  the 
youth  of  his  charge.  It  was  in  the  religious  faith 
of  a  New-England  family  that  such  a  predestina- 
tion must  be  executed,  at  whatever  cost  to  them. 
My  father's  pastor  set  the  prophetic  eye  on  him 
at  the  "  spelling-bees,"  which  were  the  climax  of 
the  examinations  at  the  village  schoolhouse.  My 
father  commonly  led  off  one  of  the  contending 
battalions,  under  the  pastor's  imperial  review. 
Samuel  to  the  sons  of  Kish  was  hardly  more 
authoritative. 

Thus  called,  "as  if  a  man  had  inquired  at  the 
oracle  of  God,"  he  saw  only  a  question  of  time. 
He  went  through  the  hardships  of  poverty,  which 
have  made  so  many  of  our  New-England  clergy 
self-reliant  and  original  theologians.  Being  one 
of  nine  children  compelled  to  hatchel  a  living 
from  a  Hampshire  County  hill-farm  of  about  two 
hundred  acres,  rocks  and  whortleberries  included, 
he  could  receive  but  little  aid  from  his  father.  He 
worked  at  the  rocks  and  the  whortleberries  till  he 
was  nineteen  years  of  age.  He  has  often  pointed 
out  to  me  the  bowlders  which  he  blasted  to  make 
a  rude  mountain-road  from  the  homestead  to  the 
turnpike.  That  road  was  like  the  road  to  Jeru- 
salem. It  was  the  only  avenue  from  the  farm  to 
the  two  chief  essentials  of  existence  to  a  Yankee 
family,  —  the  schoolhouse  and  the  church. 

In  summers  he  reaped  the  rye-field  with  a  hand- 
sickle  ;   wheat   being  a  rare  luxury,  reserved  for 


6  My  Portfolio, 

the  honor  of  hospitality,  or  as  the  honest  mother, 
not  adroit  of  speech,  used  to  express  it,  "for /ear 
somebody  should  come."  He  either  attended  or 
"kept"  the  district  school  three  months  in  the 
winters.  He  held  the  plow  with  a  Latin  gram- 
mar tucked  under  his  waistband,  and  conjugated 
"  amo  "  while  the  oxen  rested  at  the  end  of  the 
furrow.  One  of  the  first  tokens  which  his  father 
detected  of  the  son's  destiny  was  the  discovery 
that  "Eliakim,"  with  the  same  yoke  of  oxen, 
could  not  plow  as  large  a  patch  of  ground  in  a 
day  as  his  younger  brother.  He  did  not  overwork 
the  oxen.  Twice  a  week  he  walked  three  miles 
and  a  half,  after  his  day's  work  was  done,  to  recite 
to  his  pastor  in  the  evening,  trudging  back  again 
in  the  moonlight  or  the  storm,  as  it  might  happen. 
In  his  twentieth  winter,  after  chojDping  wood 
with  his  brothers  from  dawn  to  twilight,  he  read 
a  second-hand  Virgil  at  night,  lying  flat  on  the 
kitchen-floor,  before  the  huge  old-fashioned  fire- 
place, while  liis  brothers  and  sisters  were  hatchel- 
ing  flax  around  him.  They  were  too  thrifty  to 
burn  other  lights  than  that  of  the  pine-knots  which 
they  had  providently  saved  from  the  wood-pile  of 
the  summer  before.  He  thus  created  a  perpetual 
weeping  of  one  eye,  which  discouraged  scholarly 
tastes  in  him  through  life,  and  became  the  theme 
of  friendly  banter,  when,  thirty  years  later,  he 
used  to  address  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church.  His  introductory  gesture 
was  usually  a  comical  slap  at  his  weeping  eye. 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  G-eneration,  7 

He  went  to  college  in  a  homespun  suit  from  the 
fleece  of  the  sheep  he  had  washed  and  sheared; 
he  wore  stout  brogans  made  by  an  itinerant  cob- 
bler from  the  hide  of  the  cow  he  had  milked  and 
fatted ;  having  made  with  his  own  hands,  of  boards 
from  the  tree  he  had  felled,  the  paper-lined  trunk 
which  contained  his  scanty  wardrobe  and  more 
scanty  library. 

In  such  privations,  not  thought  of  as  self-deni- 
als, the  foundations  of  the  man  were  laid.  Words- 
worth's "plain  living  and  high  thinking"  are 
seldom  more  grandly  illustrated  than  in  the  un- 
conscious heroism  of  many  of  our  New-England 
3^outh  on  their  way  from  the  plow  to  the  pulpit. 
Dr.  Sprague's  "  Annals  of  the  American  Pulpit " 
indicate  that  a  large  majority  of  the  successful 
ministers  of  the  last  generation  went  through  the 
discipline  of  the  straitened  purse  and  the  frugal 
home.  We  who  have  never  known  any  other 
than  homes  of  ease  and  culture  know  very  little 
of  the  cost  of  our  inheritance.  They  were  great 
men,  who  amidst  the  adjuncts  of  manual  labor 
only,  and  the  talk  about  beeves  and  swine,  with 
scarcely  an  intellectual  stimulus  in  their  homes, 
except  the  report  from  the  town-meeting,  and  the 
daily  prayer,  and  the  word  of  God,  began  the  line 
of  culture  in  their  families.  That  is  a  costly  heri- 
tage which  they  have  transmitted  in  gentle  blood 
to  their  children  and  their  cliildren's  children.  It 
may  take,  as  wise  men  tell  us,  three  generations 
to  turn  out  a  scholar  thoroughbred ;  but  all  honor 


8  My  Portfolio, 

to  liim,  who,  in  obedience  to  the  cravings  of  an 
aspiring  spirit,  heads  the  trio. 

My  father  entered,  well  fitted  for  those  times, 
the  sophomore  class  of  Brown  University  in  1811. 
After  two  years  of  study  he  was  attracted,  by  the 
then  splendid  fame  of  Dr.  Nott,  to  Union  College, 
where  he  graduated,  with  an  honorary  oration,  in 
1814.  Among  his  collegiate  associates  were  the 
Rev.  Benjamin  B.  Wisner,  D.D.,  of  the  Old  South 
Church,  Boston;  the  Rev.  Francis  Wayland,  D.D., 
president  of  Brown  University;  the  Rev.  Joel 
Hawes,  D.D.,  of  Hartford ;  and  the  late  President 
of  the  United  States,  Martin  Van  Buren. 

He  was  one  of  a  class  of  sixteen,  formed  as  the 
nucleus  of  a  theological  seminary  at  Schenectady, 
but  which  was  soon  transferred,  and  became  the 
well-known  seminary  at  Auburn,  N.Y.  His  chief 
theological  training  he  received  from  Dr.  Nott  and 
Dr.  Yates  of  Union  College.  The  theology  of  Dr. 
Nott  was  —  what  it  was.  To  his  pupil  it  seemed 
very  slippery  :  he  could  not  grasp  it.  That  of  Dr. 
Yates  was  the  Confession  of  Dort  pure  and  sim- 
ple. With  him  the  young  theologue  held  stout  con- 
troversy in  the  "  Conflict  of  the  Ages."  He  could 
repeat  the  Westminster  Catechism  by  heart  when 
he  was  twelve  years  old.  But  the  theology  of  his 
manhood,  both  of  heart  and  head,  he  fashioned 
for  himself  in  those  friendly  jousts  with  Dr.  Yates. 
It  was  New  England  grappling  with  Old  Holland. 
The  young  Puritan  fought  it  out  as  if  nobody  had 
ever  crossed  swords  in  the  same  fight  before.     He 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last   Generation.  9 

built  his  theology  as  if  he  were  laying  the  founda- 
tions of  the  world  dc  novo.  In  temperament,  and 
by  necessity  of  original  make,  he  was  a  "  New- 
School  man."  If  he  had  been  trained  to  an  ada- 
mantine interpretation  of  the  Confession  of  Dor- 
drecht, before  President  Edwards  was  born,  he 
would  have  floundered  out  of  it,  in  some  way,  into 
some  equivalent  of  the  "  New-England  theology." 
He  was  to  that  "  manner  born."  Yet  to  his  con- 
sciousness every  iota  of  it  was  a  discovery  of  his 
own.  That  which  Froude  says  of  Latimer  was 
true  of  him,  —  "  He  was  not  an  echo,  but  a  voice." 

In  this,  as  in  some  other  things,  he  strongly 
resembled  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  Finney  of  Oberlin. 
The  theological  elements  were  so  compacted  in 
the  intellectual  make  of  both  of  them,  that  no 
drill  of  the  schools,  and  no  authority  of  council 
or  synod,  could  ever  have  made  a  high  Calvinist 
of  either.  In  those  conversational  encounters  with 
Dr.  Yates,  Dr.  Phelps  was  unconsciously  prepar- 
ing for  the  part  he  afterwards  acted  in  opposition 
to  the  disruption  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in 
1837-1838. 

He  read  theology  also,  for  a  while,  with  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Wittar  of  Wilbraham,  Mass.  I  am  unable  to 
find  traces  of  the  influence  of  that  estimable  pas- 
tor in  the  subsequent  life  of  his  pupil.  I  suspect 
that  the  magnet  which  drew  him  secretly  to  Wil- 
braham was,  that,  in  the  choir  of  the  village  church, 
the  young  and  beautiful  one  was  waiting  for  his 
coming,  who  became  the  helpmeet  of  his  ministry 


10  3Iy  Portfolio, 

for  nearly  thirty  years,  and  whom  he  gratefully 
recognized  as  his  superior  in  power  with  God.  Of 
her,  not  long  before  his  death,  when  memory,  dying 
to  other  things,  grew  young  again  to  that  golden 
age,  he  said,  "  Nine  and  twenty  years  we  walked 
together,  and  I  never  knew  her  to  do  a  wrong 
thing,  or  to  say  an  unwise  one." 

A  son  is  a  less  impartial  judge  of  a  mother's 
character  than  of  that  of  a  father.  Are  there  any 
mothers  who  are  not  Madonnas?  But  disinterested 
observers  of  this  one  have  told  me  that  her  re- 
markable judgment,  her  reticence  of  speech,  and 
her  pre-eminent  religious  culture,  well  deserved 
her  husband's  tribute.  The  promise,  "  He  shall 
give  his  angels  charge  over  thee,"  was  fulfilled  to 
him  in  the  presence  of  one  ministering  spirit  in 
earthly  form.  He  was  one  of  the  many  successful 
pastors  who  owe  their  success  largely  to  prudent 
and  godly  wives.  He  was  one  of  the  few  who 
have  grace  to  see  and  acknowledge  the  obligation. 

He  was  licensed  to  preach  by  the  Congregational 
Association  of  ministers  of  Windham  County, 
Connecticut.  It  was  his  purpose  to  seek  a  settle- 
ment in  the  then  destitute  regions  of  "  the  West." 
This  probably  meant  Western  New  York,  which 
was  then  rapidly  filling  up  with  families  from  New 
England,  or,  at  the  farthest,  Ohio,  where  explor- 
ing missionaries  were  then  traversing  forests  by 
the  aid  of  blazed  trees.  But  by  one  of  those 
minute  providences  which  turn  the  little  rill  of  a 
man's  career  far  back  near  its  trickling  springs, 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation.  11 

he  was  invited  to  supply  the  pulpit  of  the  church 
in  West  Brookfield,  Mass.,  for  two  sabbaths,  while 
another  man,  to  whom  a  ''  call  "  had  been  given, 
should  deliberate  and  decide  upon  his  answer. 
The  result  was,  that  he  became  the  pastor  of  that 
ancient  church,  as  colleague  with  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Ward,  in  1816. 

That  church  was  then  composed,  to  a  consid- 
erable extent,  of  members  who  had  been  admitted 
under  the  "Halfway  Covenant."  The  youthful 
pastor  gave  unmistakable  token  of  his  future  by 
making  it  a  condition  of  his  settlement  that  that 
disastrous  usage  should  be  abolished.  The  change 
could  not  be  achieved  by  a  vote.  It  encountered 
bitter  opposition,  and  was  a  long  process.  But  he 
was  sustained  by  the  best  element  in  the  church, 
at  the  head  of  which  he  reckoned  his  powerful 
and  constant  friend,  the  Hon.  Judge  Foster,  grand- 
father of  the  Hon.  Dwight  Foster,  late  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts.  The  private 
counsel,  as  well  as  the  public  support,  of  Judge 
Foster,  was  of  great  value  to  him  in  that  perilous 
beginning  of  his  career.  We  of  this  generation 
have  little  conception  of  the  difficulty  in  those 
times  of  making  an  orthodox  faith  and  an  active 
spiritual  religion  seem  intellectually  and  socially 
respectable.  One  man  of  high  culture  and  equal 
piety  in  a  community  was  a  tower  of  strength  to 
a  young  preacher  of  the  despised  faith. 

One  word  expresses  in  miniature  his  character 
as   a  preacher.      He   belonged   to   that   class   of 


12  My  Portfolio, 

preachers,  wlio  by  temperament,  as  well  as  by 
theological  conviction  and  providential  opportu- 
nity, are  revivalists ;  not  itinerant  evangelists, 
but  pastoral  leaders  of  spiritual  reformations. 
Certain  men  in  the  ministry  seem  created  by  God 
for  that  service.  The  best  of  them  are  found  in 
the  pastoral  office.  They  are  not  only  profound 
believers  in  the  reality  of  such  works  of  divine 
grace,  but  they  possess  natural  gifts  and  tastes 
which  make  them  a  power  in  popular  awakenings. 
They  are  prophets  in  their  discernment  of  the 
conditions  in  which  such  awakenings  are  practi- 
cable. They  foresee  them  in  their  coming.  They 
have  electric  affinities  with  the  heart  of  live  audi- 
ences. With  such  gifts  is  combined  a  certain 
power  of  "  natural  selection  "  in  their  choice  of 
homiletic  materials  and  methods.  I  call  it  "  natu- 
ral selection,"  because  it  is  much  more  the  work- 
ing of  the  oratorical  instinct,  moved  by  the  grace 
of  God,  than  of  any  scholastic  teaching,  or  of 
conscious  deliberation.  The  result  is  a  marvelous 
power  of  quickening,  and  of  command  over  great 
assemblies. . 

They  are  not  merely  direct  and  pungent  preach- 
ers, whose  aim  is  to  convert  souls.  Other  men 
are  all  that  who  have  not  their  success.  Often, 
indeed  usually,  they  are  not  men  of  accomplished 
scholarship ;  nor  are  their  successes  necessarily 
evidence  of  uncommon  spiritual  attainments.  Men 
not  eminent  in  these  respects  often  possess  the 
revival  temperament,  and  its  cognate  gifts,  in  such 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation.  13 

large  development  as  to  give  character  to  their 
whole  ministry.  Wherever  they  go,  they  are 
awakening  powers  in  the  pulpit.  To  the  uncon- 
verted their  voice  is  as  the  trump  of  judgment. 
Dead  churches  are  quickened  at  their  summons. 
Torpid  communities  groveling  in  worldliness  are 
lifted  into  an  upper  atmosphere. 

Religious  inquirers  find  in  these  men  a  wonder- 
ful insight  into  spiritual  conditions,  and  tact  in 
meeting  spiritual  wants.  Though  not  learned 
men,  they  have  "  the  tongue  of  the  learned."  They 
speak  the  word  in  season.  Common  people  hear 
them  gladly.  A  certain  power  to  steady  in  the 
very  act  of  arousing,  and  so  to  hold  well  in  hand, 
the  emotions  of  packed  audiences,  enables  them 
to  achieve  a  wise  economy  of  the  moral  forces,  so 
as  to  promote  great  results  in  brief  time  and  with 
the  minimum  of  waste  of  sensibility.  This  is  the 
look  of  their  work  to  critical  observers.  For  the 
most  part,  they  are  themselves  unconscious  of 
the  profound  and  complicated  art  which  they 
practice.  Like  other  chosen  builders  of  great 
things,  they  build  better  than  they  know. 


II. 

A  PASTOR  OP  THE  LAST  GENERATION. 

PART  II. 

The  providence  of  God  works  with  its  chosen 
instruments.  Men  of  the  revival  temperament 
described  in  the  preceding  pages,  God  commonly 
calls,  by  obvious  opportunity,  to  leadership  in  great 
awakenings.  For  this  cause  came  they  into  the 
world.  Sometimes,  like  the  elder  Edwards,  they 
are  men  of,  in  one  sense,  profound  learning  and 
eminent  piety ;  but  they  are  not  necessarily  such. 
Nor  are  their  temperament  and  their  providential 
work  very  friendly  to  either  the  tastes  or  the 
habits  of  eminent  scholarship.  The  combination 
of  all  these  elements  in  one  man  is  very  rare. 
When  has  a  second  Edwards  appeared  in  our 
American  churches?  Indeed,  was  even  his  learn- 
ing, in  the  sense  of  knowledge  of  libraries,  any 
thing  burdensome?  The  providence  of  God  ap- 
pears often  very  daring  in  its  choice  of  imperfect 
instruments  to  do  marvelous  things. 

Such  preachers  as  the  Rev.  Dr.  Davies  of  Vir- 
ginia, the  Rev.  Gilbert  Tennent  of  New  Jersey, 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Nettleton  of  Connecticut,  the  Rev. 

14 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation.  15 

Lyman  Beeclier  in  Boston,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Taylor  of 
New  Haven,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Finney  of  Oberlin,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Bhickburn  of  Missouri,  and  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Kirk  of  Boston,  were  representatives  of  this  class 
of  preachers.  In  the  direct  work  of  converting 
souls,  and  augmenting  the  numbers  of  the  church, 
these  men  had  no  superiors.  Such  men  do  not 
execute  as  well,  nor  do  they  often  estimate  at  its 
true  value,  the  work  of  educating  churches  up  to 
the  more  mature  experience  of  a  sanctified  culture. 
To  this  class  of  preachers  the  subject  of  this 
sketch  belonged.  Almost  immediately  after  his 
ordination  at  West  Brookfield,  that  venerable 
church  began  to  quake  as  it  had  never  done 
before  since  the  Pequot  war.  His  voice  was  that 
of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness.  Professors  of 
religion  under  the  "  Halfway  Covenant "  were 
shaken  out  of  their  dreams.  As  usual,  the 
awakening  of  men  and  women  of  blameless  lives 
roused  opposition.  Some  of  the  honored  leaders 
of  the  church  feared  such  an  unwonted  ado  about 
religion.  It  was  not  comfortable.  Things  were 
not  as  they  used  to  be.  What  was  that  but 
fanaticism  ?  Evening  meetings  were  objected  to. 
Their  fathers  had  not  been  guilty  of  evening  meet- 
ings. Tallow  candles  —  and  the  ancient  church 
edifice  contained  no  provision  for  any  thing  better 
—  were  not  a  churchly  means  of  illumination  in 
divine  things.  It  was  denounced  as  a  disorder, 
if  not  a  sin,  to  carry  public  worship  into  times 
and  places  which  God  had  not  consecrated  to  the 


16  My  Portfolio. 

purpose.  Did  not  the  Lord  know  how  much  time 
could  be  wisely  given  to  public  praying?  The 
danger  of  nocturnal  meetings  to  the  youth  of  the 
two  sexes  was  dreaded  with  pious  horror.  Un- 
usual anxiety  was  felt  for  the  overworked  sexton. 
All  things  considered,  what  was  the  world  coming 
to?  The  headstrong  young  preacher  who  was 
turning  it  upside  down  was  threatened  with  a 
short  pastorate. 

On  one  occasion  his  spirit  was  stirred  within 
him  at  seeing  a  crowd  of  the  young  men  surround- 
ing his  own  door  at  the  hour  he  had  appointed 
for  a  meeting  of  religious  inquiry.  Their  hope 
was  to  intimidate  the  young  women  from  attend- 
ing it.  As  he  approached,  they  fell  back  to  the 
right  and  the  left ;  and,  as  he  walked  up  between, 
he  cheerily  invited  them  all  to  enter  with  him. 
"  Whales  in  the  sea  God's  voice  obey."  Laughing 
and  jesting,  the  crowd  followed  him  in.  The 
dignity  and  beauty  of  the  young  wife  awed  them. 
Some  of  them  were  soon  weeping;  and  before 
the  winter  was  over  the  majority  of  them  were 
converted. 

His  was  one  of  the  earliest  Sunday  schools  es- 
tablished in  this  country.  At  the  time,  he  knew 
of  but  one  other.  He  organized  his  own  on  the 
very  next  day  after  he  heard  of  one.  Some  of 
the  best  members  of  his  church  thought  it  a  dese- 
cration of  the  sabbath.  They  refused  to  send 
their  children.  He  might  have  been  overcome  in 
the  controversy,  had  he  not  been  supported  by  the 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last   Generation.  17 

wise  counsel  of  Judge  Foster.  Said  the  judge  to 
the  opposers,  ''If  you  know  your  own  interests, 
you  will  not  drive  this  young  man  from  you  by 
refusing  to  let  him  work  in  his  own  way.  Every 
captain  must  be  master  of  his  own  ship.  Give 
him  time,  and  see  what  comes  of  it."  Time 
showed  that  the  Lord  was  Avith  the  young  man. 

On  another  occasion,  a  party  of  rude  fellows 
sent  to  him  a  beautiful  but  notorious  woman,  who 
had  been  the  ruin  of  some  of  them,  persuading 
her  to  represent  herself  as  an  inquirer,  anxious 
for  her  soul's  salvation.  They  hoped  to  entangle 
him  in  some  indiscretion.  He  detected  the  sham 
the  instant  she  made  known  her  errand.  He 
turned,  and  invited  his  3'oung  wife  to  remain  at 
the  interview ;  and,  after  kneeling  in  prayer,  he 
gave  to  the  poor  creature  an  admonition  of  such 
caustic  fidelity,  that  she  went  back  to  the  sons  of 
Belial,  and  told  them  that  she  had  been  on  a  fool's 
errand,  and  that  it  would  take  longer  heads  than 
theirs  to  "  catch  the  parson." 

The  revival  advanced  with  increasing  power, 
till  the  visible  fruits  of  the  "  Halfway  Covenant " 
were  nearly  eradicated  from  the  church,  and  the 
whole  town  was  pervaded  by  a  new  spirit.  The 
work  extended  also  into  surrounding  towns.  He 
was  sent  for  from  far  and  near  to  labor  in  similar 
scenes.  He  was  not  partial  to  "  evangelism  "  in 
the  conduct  of  revivals  in  the  older  settlements  of 
the  country.  His  theory  was,  that  mutual  pastoral 
help  was  more  effective,  and  less  dangerous  to  the 


18  My  Portfolio, 

unity  and  good  order  of  the  churches.  On  this 
theory  he  acted.  Bramtree,  Spencer,  Somers, 
Warren,  Sturbridge,  Ware,  Worcester,  Northamp- 
ton, Boston,  and  other  places,  witnessed  the  suc- 
cess of  his  preaching,  especially  in  arousing  the 
impenitent,  and  leading  them  to  Christ.  Thirty 
years  afterwards  I  found  traces  of  his  work  still 
remaining  among  the  older  members  of  the  Park- 
street  Church,  in  which  he  preached  six  weeks  in 
the  midst  of  a  revival.  Deacon  Proctor,  a  well- 
known  officer  of  that  church,  if  I  mistake  not,  met 
the  decisive  crisis  of  his  religious  life  at  that  time. 

The  spirit  of  progressive  enterprise  led  the 
country  minister  to  organize  a  temperance  society 
at  West  Brookfield,  on  the  principle  of  total  absti- 
nence, when  only  one  other  member,  even  of  the 
Brookfield  Association  of  Ministers,  supported 
the  movement.  He  was  the  first  clergyman  of 
the  county  to  remove  the  liquor-bottles  from  his 
sideboard.  He  bore  calmly  the  charge  that  he 
did  it  from  parsimonious  motives.  An  aged  cleri- 
cal associate,  who  had  more  than  once  been  seen 
to  stagger  up  the  pulpit-stairs  on  a  Sunday  after- 
noon, begged  of  his  young  brother  not  to  be 
wiser  than  his  fathers,  nor  more  temperate  than 
his  blessed  Master.  For  one,  he  wanted  no  better 
example  than  the  Lord  Jesus. 

The  mind  of  the  young  pastor  was  at  that  time 
on  the  alert  to  discover  and  to  welcome  any  good 
cause.  Foreign  missions  were  a  novelty  to  the 
American  churches.      Edward   Everett   satirized 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation.  19 

tliem  in  rhetoric  unequaled.  They  found  in  my 
father  a  congenial  spirit  from  the  first.  It  was 
one  of  the  entertainments  of  my  childhood  to 
teach  the  alphabet,  when  I  knew  little  more  my- 
self, to  the  heathen  youth  whom  he  took  into  his 
family.  The  first  missionary  mechanic  sent  to  the 
Hawaiian  Islands  was  a  member  of  his  cono^resja- 
tion.  At  the  same  time  he  was  one  of  the  most 
active  friends  of  Amherst  College,  and  one  of  the 
clerical  donors  to  its  treasury  when  its  existence 
was  imperiled.  It  was  once  my  privilege  to 
count  the  pile  of  silver-pieces  on  his  table,  which 
he  had  collected,  in  response  to  the  appeal  of 
Professor  Stuart,  for  the  library  of  Andover  Semi- 
nary, —  so  varied  and  broadcast  were  the  sympa- 
thies of  the  country  parson. 

The  initiation  which  he  received  to  the  work  of 
the  pulpit  by  a  powerful  work  of  divine  grace, 
wrought  an  effect  on  him  which  is  often  witnessed 
in  the  experience  of  pastors  of  the  revival  tem- 
perament. He  fell  into  a  snare.  When  years 
passed,  and  the  revival  was  not  repeated,  he  be- 
came restless  and  dissatisfied.  They  seemed  to 
him  years  of  waste.  Theorize  as  he  might  about 
it,  and  his  theory  was  correct  enough,  yet  it 
was  not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  he  should 
find  in  the  slow  education  of  the  church  the  same 
bounding  pulse  of  activity,  and  the  same  sense 
of  achievement  and  of  conquest,  which  exhilarated 
him  when  the  tide  of  the  religious  awakening  ran 
high.     This  is  one  of  the  re-actionary  evils  of  re- 


20  My  Portfolio. 

vivals  of  which  pastors  need  to  take  wise  account. 
He,  in  liis  youthful  and  impatient  zeal,  did  not. 
Like  the  rest  of  us,  he  read  providences  through 
the  lens  of  temperament  and  prepossession,  and 
at  length  persuaded  himself  that  God  called  him 
elsewhere.  He  resigned  his  charge,  and  became 
the  principal  of  the  "Ladies'  High  School"  at 
Pittsfield,  Mass. 

But  scarcely  was  he  inaugurated  to  his  new 
office,  when  he  discovered  that  he  had  committed, 
as  he  always  afterwards  called  it,  the  great  mis- 
take of  his  life.  He  had  left  his  heart,  and  the 
best  capabilities  of  his  nature,  behind  him,  in  the 
pulpit  which  he  had  abandoned.  God  had  called 
him  from  the  sheepfold  to  preach,  not  to  teach. 
He  reproached  himself  with  ascetic  severity  for 
having  allowed  himself  to  be  allured  or  driven 
from  the  true  work  of  his  life.  But,  at  that 
humiliating  juncture,  his  life  illustrated  signally 
the  magnanimity  with  which  God  often  overrules 
the  mistakes  of  his  chosen  ones. 

It  happened  that  the  pulpit  of  the  First  Church 
in  Pittsfield  was  then  vacant,  by  reason  of  the 
absence  of  its  invalid  pastor  on  a  long  furlough.- 
My  father  was  invited  to  be  its  pastor  jjro  tempore. 
He  engaged  in  the  work  with  the  humility  of  a 
penitent  prodigal.  The  result,  under  God,  was  a 
revival  of  marvelous  power,  even  for  that  favored 
town,  which  had  but  recently  enjoyed  the  ministry 
of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Humphrey.  In  a  few  months, 
more  than  three  hundred  converts  were  admitted 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation,  21 

to  the  cliurclies,  the  majority  of  them  attributing 
their  conversion  to  my  father's  labors.  He  was 
once  more  in  his  natural  element.  Night  and  day 
he  labored  for  souls,  and  God  gave  him  his  heart's 
desire. 

His  longing  to  return  permanently  to  pastoral 
office  was  deepened.  As  soon  as  his  engagement 
with  the  trustees  of  the  High  School  would  per- 
mit his  honorable  retirement,  he  resigned  the 
position,  though  his  success  in  it  had  been  un- 
doubted, and  it  had  begun  to  be  pecuniarily 
profitable.  He  resumed  his  original  purpose  of 
seeking  a  pulpit  in  Western  New  York.  In  1830 
he  succeeded  the  Rev.  Henry  Axtell,  D.D.,  as  pas- 
tor of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  at  Geneva, 
N.Y.  On  his  way  there,  he  preached  with  success 
in  a  revival  in  the  city  of  Rochester. 

At  Geneva  he  remained  six  years.  Again  his 
ministry  was  attended  with  rich  results  in  the 
conversion  of  the  impenitent.  At  that  period  he 
'vV^as  one  of  Dr.  Finney's  pastoral  coadjutors. 
Though  not  friendly  to  the  employment  of  evan- 
gelists in  churches  well  provided  with  the  agencies 
of  churchly  work,  yet  he  recognized  cordially 
providential  exceptions.  Of  these  he  believed  Dr. 
Finney  to  be  one.  This,  it  should  be  remembered, 
was  long  before  Dr.  Finney  had  gained  that  con- 
fidence of  the  churches  which  he  enjoyed  at  Ober- 
lin.  My  father,  though  he  did  not  approve  all  his 
methods  of  procedure,  yet  was  his  stanch  friend 
and  supporter.     His  recognition  of  that  remarka- 


22  My  Portfolio, 

ble  man  as  one  chosen  of  God  to  a  great  work, 
was  an  instance  of  rare  foresight  of  coming  history. 

More  than  four  hundred  persons  were  added  to 
the  churches  of  Geneva  who  traced  their  conver- 
sion to  my  father's  ministry.  Among  them  were 
many  cases  of  overwhelming  conviction  of  sin. 
Conversions  like  those  of  Edwards  and  Brainerd 
were  frequent.  He  used  to  be  summoned  at 
midnight  to  souls  in  despair.  Some  cases  also 
occurred  which  looked  fearfully  like  instances  of 
the  unpardonable  sin.  The  narrative  of  one  such 
he  published,  and  it  had  a  circulation  of  nearly  a 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  copies.  The  culmina- 
tion of  his  life's  usefulness  probably  occurred  in 
that  revival. 

I  well  remember  the  debates  in  the  parsonage 
between  him  and  those  of  his  clerical  brethren 
who  distrusted  Dr.  Finney.  He  had  little  to  say 
of  clerical  theories,  for  or  against.  He  used  to 
appeal  to  the  facts  known  and  read  of  all  men. 
There  were  the  dead  churches  before  Dr.  Finney's 
advent,  and  there  were  the  same  churches  teem- 
ing with  life  afterwards.  What  more  need  be 
said?  For  many  years  he  kept  himself  informed 
as  to  the  permanence  of  Dr.  Finney's  work.  The 
statistics  he  collected  from  the  churches  of  West- 
ern New  York  confirmed  his  judgment  of  those 
revivals,  that  they  were  the  genuine  work  of  God. 
It  was  no  small  part  of  an  education  for  the  min- 
istry to  listen  to  those  clerical  discussions  about 
the  great  evangelist.     One  of  my  father's  axioms, 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation.  23 

I  remember,  impressed  me  deeply :  "  Better  do 
some  things  wrong  than  do  nothing."  Few  things 
illustrate  the  adventurous  spirit  of  his  life  better 
than  that  proverb.  It  covers,  also,  a  very  large 
portion  of  the  debatable  ground  between  the 
friends  of  revivals  and  those  good  men  who  are 
more  keenly  sensible  of  the  perils  of  them  than 
of  their  benefits. 

Rochester,  Lockport,  Lyons,  Penn  Yan,  Canan- 
daigua,  Ovid,  Buffalo,  Auburn,  Utica,  were  among 
the  localities  in  which  he  preached  with  marked 
success.  In  those  years  he  rarely,  if  ever,  preached 
sermons  which  were  not  apparently  the  means  of 
immediate  and  visible  usefulness.  To  my  boyish 
judgment  he  seemed  to  live  in  one  continuous 
revival.  Such  was  the  atmosphere  of  the  parson- 
age. Such  was  the  spirit  of  all  his  preaching. 
His  days  were  spent,  when  not  in  his  study,  in 
the  work  of  conversation  with  men  upon  the  reali- 
ties of  eternity. 

I  remember  once  riding  with  liim  six  miles  into 
the  country  in  search  of  a  man,  not  one  of  his 
congregation,  but  who  professed  to  be  an  infidel, 
and  whom  my  father  claimed  on  the  principle 
which  he  often  affirmed  as  the  rule  of  his  pastoral 
labors,  —  "  The  man  who  belongs  nowhere  belongs 
to  me,  and  I  must  give  account  of  him."  On  the 
occasion  referred  to  he  spent  the  whole  afternoon 
in  argument  and  friendly  admonition  to  the  un- 
believer. I  could  not  judge  of  his  success :  I  only 
knew  that  he  seemed  to  have  made  the  man  his 


24  My  Portfolio, 

friend.  One  of  the  wealthiest  men  in  his  parish 
was  believed  to  be  unapproachable  on  the  subject 
of  religion.  The  pastor,  not  daunted  by  the 
report,  called  upon  him,  followed  him  into  his 
magnificent  garden,  and,  after  discussing  the  fruits 
of  the  season  till  his  host  seemed  to  be  in  good 
humor,  sat  down  with  him  on  a  bench  in  the 
arbor,  and  told  liim  his  errand.  The  old  man 
drew  himself  up,  and  said,  in  hackneyed  pride, 
"  Sir,  my  religion  lies  between  me  and  my  God. 
When  I  feel  the  need  of  other  aid,  I  will  send  for 
you."  The  pastor  grasped  his  hand,  and  replied, 
"  My  friend,  you  and  I  may  both  be  in  eternity 
long  before  that  time.  I  can  not  afford  to  wait,  if 
you  can."  In  three  minutes  the  sinner  of  sixty 
years  was  weeping  like  a  child.  He  confessed 
that  for  weeks  he  had  been  contending  with  the 
spirit  of  God. 

In  this  matter  of  personal  fidelity  to  the  souls 
of  men,  I  must  regard  him  as  a  model  pastor.  He 
had  little  confidence  in  the  usefulness  of  a  pastor 
whom  his  people  saw  only  or  chiefly  in  the  pulpit. 
Volumes  would  be  required  to  relate  the  narrative 
of  his  pastoral  faithfulness  and  its  reward.  The 
staple  theme  of  conversation  in  his  home  was  the 
salvation  of  men.  I  well  remember  the  novelty 
of  the  discovery  to  me  when  I  left  home,  and 
learned  that  there  were  clerical  families  in  which 
this  was  not  true.  The  home-life  of  my  father  for 
years  led  me  to  interpret  literally  the  apostolic 
injunctions  respecting  "  holy  conversation."     He 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation.  25 

read  little  in  those  years  of  revival :  he  had  no 
time  for  it,  outside  of  the  work  of  his  pulpit.  Yet 
I  remember  heavy  additions  to  his  library  made 
at  that  time.  His  first  purchase  of  a  copy  of 
Shakspeare  occurred  then.  But  his  life's  work 
was  that  of  preaching  Christ  publicly,  and  from 
house  to  house.  The  "  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  " 
could  scarcely  have  given  himself  ^more  devotedly 
to  that  one  thing. 

Still  his  life  did  not  make  on  an  observer  the  im- 
pression of  professional  routine.  It  had  the  look 
of  the  natural  adjustment  to  the  conditions  of  his 
calling.  It  was  not  the  contraction  of  a  narrow 
mind  ;  it  was  the  intensity  of  a  concentrated 
mind.  Whatever  may  be  true  of  other  professions, 
that  of  a  Christian  pastor,  whose  work  God  may 
at  any  time  cover  with  foreshadowings  of  the  day 
of  judgment,  by  a  mysterious  awakening  of  the 
popular  conscience,  must  command  these  two  ele- 
ments of  executive  force,  —  mental  intensity  and 
mental  unity.  A  cooler  temperament,  or  a  more 
complex  and  reticulated  life,  can  not  meet  the  de- 
mands of  the  situation.  The  successes  which 
great  awakenings  indicate  are  never  achieved  by 
such  a  life. 


III. 

A  PASTOE  OF  THE  LAST  GENEEATIOK 

PAET  III. 

The  results  of  my  father's  labors  were  much 
beyond  those  which  are  commonly  appreciable 
and  tangible  in  the  experience  of  pastors.  It  is 
the  life-long  trial  of  some  good  men,  that  their 
life's  work  is  so  absorbed  in  general  currents  of 
influence,  that  they  can  not  lay  their  hand  upon 
this  thing  or  that,  and  say,  "  This  is  my  reward." 
His  work  was  not  thus  buried  from  his  own  sight. 
He  modestly  estimated  the  number  of  those  who 
attributed  their  conversion  directly  to  his  words 
as  about  one  thousand.  Those  who  knew  better 
than  he  did  the  fruits  of  his  work  outside  of  his 
own  churches  doubled  that  number. 

In  one  respect  his  work  strikingly  resembled 
that  of  Dr.  Finney,  though  it  was  not  nearly  so 
extensive.  Multitudes  of  church-members  who 
had  lived  under  fatalistic  conceptions  of  divine 
grace  believed  themselves  to  have  been  enlight- 
ened, and  first  really  converted,  by  the  blessing 
of  God  upon  his  preaching.  The  cases  were  con- 
stantly occurring  of  men  and  women  who  were 

26 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation.  27 

relieved  from  life-long  bondage  or  from  skepticism 
by  his  methods  of  presenting  the  Calvinistic  type 
of  theolog}^  Persons  from  distant  places  used  to 
seek  his  counsel,  under  awakenings  of  conscience 
produced  by  casually  hearing  a  sermon  from  his 
lips.  Methodists  and  Quakers  came  to  him  with 
their  denominational  objections  to  high  Calvinism, 
and  left  him,  saying,  that,  "  if  he  was  not  right  in 
his  theology,  he  was  a  most  dangerous  man ;  for 
he  had  a  marvelous  power  to  make  the  wrong 
seem  right."  Cases  of  conscience  were  brought 
to  him  in  large  numbers  for  adjudication.  Many 
infidels,  also,  were  first  silenced,  and  then  appar- 
ently converted,  by  their  first  hearing  of  the 
gospel,  in  the  New-England  methods  of  interpre- 
tation, in  his  pulpit  or  at  the  parsonage.  Thus 
presented,  it  seemed  to  them  for  the  first  time  a 
credible  system  of  truth. 

The  waves  of  spiritual  awakening  which  during 
those  years  rolled  over  the  interior  and  western 
counties  of  New  York,  were  interpreted  by  him  as 
being  philosophically  the  natural  re-action  from  a 
fatalistic  type  of  Calvinism  to  one  more  con- 
sistent with  the  Scriptures  and  with  the  necessary 
beliefs  of  men.  The  biography  of  Dr.  Finney 
gives  ample  evidence  of  the  correctness  of  this 
view.  Gross  distortions  of  the  Calvinistic  the- 
ology had  got  possession  of  the  popular  faith 
throughout  large  sections  of  the  central  and  west- 
ern counties.  Errors  they  were,  which  nobody  — 
Old  School,  or  New,  or  neither  —  ever  preached. 


28  My  Portfolio, 

They  illustrated  the  principle  which  justifies  even 
a  fastidious  care  for  soundness  in  the  faith,  —  that 
the  popular  theology  is  sure  to  reduce  to  carica- 
ture the  plausible  error  of  him  who  teaches  it. 
That  which  in  him  is  only  a  moderate  foreshorten- 
ing of  perspective  becomes  in  it  a  grotesque  mon- 
strosity. He  puts  together  golden  treasures  in 
the  effort  to  create  a  god,  and  there  comes  out  a 
calf.  Human  nature  everywhere  has  a  Pagan 
propensity  to  fetichism.  It  had  full  swing  in  the 
popular  forms  of  Calvinism  in  Western  New  York, 
previous  to  the  great  awakening  under  Dr.  Finney. 
It  would  be  a  libel  upon  any  school  of  divinity 
to  hold  it  responsible  for  those  enormous  freaks 
of  fatalism  which  Dr.  Finney  and  his  coadjutors 
had  to  encounter.  Buried  beneath  that  mass  of 
rubbish,  there  lay  a  vast  amount  of  pure  truth  in 
the  popular  convictions.  It  had  been  planted 
there  by  earnest  and  godly  men  of  the  Old  School. 
The  elements  of  a  religious  revival  were  all  there : 
they  needed  only  the  men  endued  with  the  revi- 
val temperament,  and  possessed  of  a  scriptural 
and  rational  theology,  and  blessed  of  God  as  he 
is  wont  to  bless  such  men  when  called  to  his 
work,  to  set  the  whole  heavens  in  a  glow  with  the 
reflection  of  light  from  enkindled  altars.  It  was 
my  father's  privilege  to  be  one  of  the  chosen  in- 
struments in  that  work.  Evangelists  achieved  a 
wider  reputation  than  his ;  but  few  pastors  of  his 
generation,  or  of  ours,  have  been  so  signally  re- 
warded. 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation,  29 

It  was  in  those  days  a  question  vital  to  the 
character  of  a  minister,  How  does  he  stand  af- 
fected towards  the  institution  of  slavery?  My 
father,  by  natural  temperament,  was  not  a  conser- 
vative, and  he  was  not  a  radical.  On  almost  all 
subjects  he  saw  two  sides  of  things.  But,  if  the 
course  of  events  compelled  him  to  appear  to  side 
with  either  extreme,  he  was  apt  to  drift  towards 
the  side  of  the  radical.  He  refused  his  pulpit  to 
an  abolitionist  lecturer  of  the  long  hau-ed  and 
bearded  school,  because,  he  said,  his  people  had 
rights  there  which  he  was  bound  to  respect ;  but, 
if  a  fugitive  slave  applied  to  him  for  food  and  a 
hiding-place,  he  fell  back  on  first  principles,  and 
bade  his  fellow-man  welcome  to  both.  He  would 
not  go  out  of  his  way  as  a  Christian  minister  to 
hunt  up  an  "  underground  railroad."  He  said  that 
God  had  not  ordained  him  to  that  business.  But, 
if  the  "  underground  railroad  "  passed  by  his  door, 
he  used  it  without  clerical  or  political  scruple. 
Several  fugitives  owed  their  liberty  to  his  aid.  He 
would  not  take  the  platform  with  Mr.  Garrison, 
because  he  revered  the  Scriptures  and  the  church 
of  Christ  more  than  he  did  anybody's  civil  free- 
dom. But,  whenever  he  encountered  antislavery 
free  from  infidel  adjuncts,  he  gave  it  the  hand  of 
fellowship  with  all  his  heart.  He  never  advised 
black  men  to  go  to  Liberia.  The  Colonization 
Society  was  to  his  view  organized  folly :  he  used 
to  say,  that,  as  a  political  scheme,  it  was  a  fraud, 
and,  as  a  missionary  scheme,  a  farce.     With  the 


30  My  Portfolio. 

exception  of  this  distrust  of  African  colonization, 
he  represented  fairly  the  general  antislavery  policy 
of  the  Northern  clergy  of  his  day.  It  is  a  libel 
upon  them  to  portray  them  otherwise. 

He  once  employed  for  several  months  a  run- 
away negro  as  a  laborer.  One  morning  the  rumor 
came  that  John's  master  was  at  the  hotel,  within 
a  pistol-shot  of  the  parsonage,  that  he  had  ob- 
tained a  warrant  for  the  arrest  of  his  chattel,  and 
that  he  had  a  leash  of  dogs  on  hand  for  the  hunt. 
Geneva  attracted  slave-hunters  at  that  time ;  be- 
cause, besides  being  near  the  border-line  of  Canada, 
it  was  the  seat  of  a  negro  colony  of  some  three 
hundred,  nearly  all  the  adults  being  runaways.  I 
suppose  it  would  have  cost  the  pastor  his  pulpit, 
if  the  deed  of  that  day  had  been  known.  The 
United-States  marshal  of  the  district  was  one  of 
his  parishioners.  It  is  sufficient  token  of  the 
dominant  politics  of  that  period,  that  it  was  on 
the  eve  of  the  election  of  Martin  Van  Buren,  a 
favorite  son  of  New  York,  to  the  presidency. 
Among  the  pastor's  flock  were  magnates  to  whom 
the  "  Union  and  the  Constitution  "  were  second 
only  to  the  oracles  of  God. 

But  the  shield  was  turned  now  in  his  vision; 
and  John  appeared  to  have  rights,  which,  pulpit 
or  no  pulpit,  must  not  be  ignored  by  a  minister  of 
Christ.  He  resolved  that  John  should  have  fair 
pla3\  He  asked  him  if  he  wanted  to  go  back  to 
Maryland.  John  thought  not.  But  had  he  not 
left   a   wife   in    Maryland  ?      Yes  ;   but   he   had 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation.  31 

"anoder  one"  in  Geneva.  She  was  "black  but 
comely,"  and  had  borne  him  two  children.  His 
Maryland  master  had  not  taught  him  very  clear 
notions  of  the  marriage-tie.  On  the  Avhole,  he 
thought  "  he'd  sooner  die  than  leave  the  picka- 
ninnies." "If  he  went  back,  his  master  would 
sell  him  South."  "  He'd  rather  go  to  hell."  "  He 
reckoned  he  wouldn't  be  took  alive."  "  He'd  take 
his  chance  with  the  hounds." 

As  the  market  stood  in  those  days,  he  was  worth 
taking  alive,  if  the  hounds  could  be  kept  off  from 
the  jugular  vein.  He  was  a  stout  "  six-footer,"  in 
the  prime  of  manhood;  a  bright  mulatto,  with 
white  brains,  sound  in  wind  and  limb  ;  his  teeth 
would  bear  counting  on  the  auction-block,  and  he 
was  a  trained  mechanic  withal :  in  return  for 
some  teaching  which  I  gave  him,  he  had  taught 
me  how  to  shingle  a  barn.  The  master's  title,  too, 
was  beyond  a  doubt:  his  broad  back  was  branded 
very  legibly.  My  father  told  him  he  hoped  nobody 
would  have  to  die ;  but  he  added  some  advice,  in 
tones  too  low  for  me  to  hear,  but  with  a  compres- 
sion of  the  mouth  which  was  well  understood  in 
the  discipline  of  the  family.  He  then  told  John 
to  take  to  a  certain  piece  of  woods,  and  wait  there, 
while  he  himself  went  to  the  hotel  to  reconnoiter. 

John  crept  around  the  barn  of  the  hotel  to  a 
little  cabin,  where  "  the  pickaninnies  "  were  rolling 
in  the  dirt,  and  was  soon  ranging  the  woods.  A 
few  hours  after,  the  pastor  returned,  with  lips  more 
sternly  compressed  than  ever,  and   proceeded  to 


32  3Iy  Fortfolio. 

make  up  a  basket  of  food  for  John.  He  brought 
it  to  me,  and  told  me  to  go  with  it,  and  find  him. 
My  father's  eye  silently  answered  mine  when  I 
observed  that  the  knife  was  not  the  mate  of  the 
fork,  that  it  was  too  large  to  be  covered  in  the 
basket,  that,  in  short,  it  was  the  largest  carver  in 
the  house, — the  one  with  which  John  had  not 
long  before  slaughtered  a  pig.  It  was  as  nearly  a 
facsimile  of  a  bowie-knife  as  the  credit  of  the  par- 
sonage ought  to  bear.  I  found  John.  His  eye, 
too,  alighted  first  on  the  familiar  knife.  The  grim 
smile  of  his  savage  ancestors  gleamed  around  his 
white  teeth.  He  played  with  the  food,  but  treas- 
ured the  knife  in  his  bosom.  Said  he,  as  I  took 
his  hand  at  parting,  "  Tell  your  fader  that  he  is  a 
Christian  and  a  gemman,  ebery  inch  of  him." 
His  ideas  of  what  Christianity  is  may  have  been 
rather  mixed  (he  had  learned  them  at  the  whip- 
ping-post) ;  but  his  half-savage  intuitions  of  what 
Christianity  ought  to  do  for  a  hunted  man  were 
not  far  wrong.  So,  at  least,  the  pastor  thought. 
It  was  well  for  dog  and  master  that  they  did  not 
find  John's  trail.  Indeed,  I  suspect  the  dogs  were 
left  at  the  hotel.  Even  Martin  Van  Buren's  con- 
stituents in  a  livery-stable  would  hardly  have 
winked  at  that  business  on  the  soil  of  New  York. 
Human  nature  has  an  innate  reverence  for  the 
jugular  vein. 

My  father's  prayer  with  us  that  night  was 
unusually  solemn.  He  remembered  both  the  slave 
and  the  slave-hunter.      In  no  other  event  of  his 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Generation.  33 

life  known  to  me  did  the  old  blood  of  England's 
Ironsides  leap  to  view  so  vividly  as  in  that  deed 
and  that  praj^er  of  loyalty  to  human  liberty.  Yes, 
Ms  Christianity  was  of  that  sort.  Yet  nineteen- 
twentieths  of  the  Northern  clergy  of  his  generation 
would  have  done  the  same,  although  some  of  those 
very  men  —  not  a  great  many  of  them  —  after- 
wards preached  in  defense  of  the  fugitive  slave- 
law.  It  is  one  thing  to  sermonize  in  one's  study 
by  candle-light,  and  with  feet  incased  in  warm 
slippers :  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  set  dogs  on 
the  trail  of  a  panting  man  in  the  woods  in  broad 
day.  Blessed  be  the  inconsistencies  of  good  men  ! 
Ah,  how  far  back  in  the  middle  ages  those  days 
seem  now !  Were  beasts  ever  brought  from  Mary- 
land to  hunt  men  on  the  banks  of  silvery  Lake 
Seneca,  within  sight  of  the  tower  of  Hobart  Col- 
lege? Did  living  man  ever  think  to  set  blood- 
hounds on  the  track  of  a  woman,  where  their 
baying  would  be  answered  by  vesper-bells  from 
the  belfry  of  a  Christian  church  ? 

My  father's  pastoral  preaching  was  terminated 
suddenly.  An  attack  of  the  Asiatic  cholera,  the 
infection  of  which  he  caught  in  the  course  of  his 
pastoral  duty,  brought  him  to  death's  door.  He 
was  given  up  by  his  physicians,  and  was  supposed 
to  be  in  the  stage  of  speechless  collapse,  when  he 
suddenly  spoke,  and  prescribed  for  himself  the 
means  of  cure.  He  believed  ever  afterwards  that 
he  was  divinely  guided  in  the  extremity  to  the 
saving  of  his  life.     To  the  physician  it  was  only 


34  3Iy  Portfolio. 

one  of  the  mysterious  instances  in  which  nature 
springs  upon  disease  from  ambuscade,  and  con- 
quers. 

But  the  caustic  remedies  which  had  been  before 
employed  shattered  his  nervous  system,  so  that 
he  never  again  felt  able  to  resume  the  labors  of  a 
settled  pastor.  He  resigned  his  charge  at  Geneva, 
and  in  1836  removed  to  Philadelphia,  to  take 
the  secretaryship  of  the  American  Education  So- 
ciety there,  and  afterwards  at  New  York  also. 
He  labored  in  the  usual  routine  of  those  offices 
till  advancing  years  obliged  him  to  retire  from  all 
continuous  public  service. 

As  my  main  object  is  to  portray  his  pastoral 
life,  in  which,  in  my  judgment,  his  chief  usefulness 
was  achieved,  I  will  not  here  detail  his  work  as  a 
counselor,  and  one  of  the  executives,  always  in 
the  interest  of  union,  in  the  controversy  which 
sundered  the  Presbyterian  Church.  Suffice  it  to 
say,  that  he  was  the  supporter  and  personal  friend 
and  parishioner  of  the  Rev.  Albert  Barnes ;  if  I 
remember  rightly,  was  a  member  of  the  General 
Assembly  which  acquitted  Mr.  Barnes  of  the 
charge  of  heresy ;  was  for  two  years  the  anony- 
mous editor  of  "  The  Christian  Observer,"  the 
organ  of  the  New  School  men  of  Philadelphia; 
and  was  one  of  the  New  School  Assembly  which 
formed  itself,  when,  after  the  exscinding  acts  of 
1837,  Mr.  Barnes,  Dr.  Beman,  Dr.  Cox,  Dr.  Beech- 
er,  and  others,  were,  like  himself,  refused  seats  in 
the  Assembly  of  1838. 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Greneration.  35 

He  did  not  enjoy  that  controversial  work.  His 
heart  was  elsewhere.  He  entered  the  Presbyte- 
rian Church  in  that  spirit  of  fraternal  comity  which 
then  united  it,  in  sympathy  with  the  Congrega- 
tional churches  of  New  England,  under  the  "  Plan 
of  Union,"  and  the  loss  of  which  has  been  of  no 
benefit  to  either.  He  labored  for  Presbyterian 
interests  in  good  faith,  as  long  as  his  official  con- 
nections bound  him  in  honor  to  them ;  but  he  was 
always  at  heart  a  Congregationalist.  His  expe- 
rience in  the  Presbyterian  "  camp,"  as  he  used  to 
call  it,  intensified  his  attachment  to  the  polity  of 
his  fathers.  It  was  his  favorite  theory,  that  the 
male  adult  members  of  a  Presbyterian  church 
ought  all  of  them  to  be  elected  to  the  eldership. 
His  Scotch  brethren  in  the  presbytery  never  took 
the  joke. 

It  was  after  his  retirement  from  public  life  that 
he  became  interested  in  Spiritualism.  It  would 
be  more  truthful  to  say  that  it  became  interested 
in  him;  for  it  came  upon  him  without  his  seek- 
ing, suddenly  invading  his  .household,  and  making 
a  pandemonium  of  it  for  seven  months,  and  then 
departing  as  suddenly  as  it  came.  The  phenome- 
na resembled  those  which  for  many  years  afflicted 
the  Wesley  family,  and  those  which  at  one  time 
attended  the  person  of  Oberlin.  They  were  an 
almost  literal  repetition  of  some  of  the  records 
left  by  Cotton  Mather.  Had  my  father  lived  in 
1650  instead  of  1850,  he  and  his  family  would 
have  lived  in  history  with  the  victims  on  Tower 


36  My  Portfolio. 

Hill  in  Salem.  That  the  facts  were  real,  a  thou- 
sand witnesses  testified.  An  eminent  judge  in 
the  State  of  New  York  said  that  he  had  pro- 
nounced sentence  of  death  on  many  a  criminal  on 
a  tithe  of  the  evidence  which  supported  those 
facts.  That  they  were  inexplicable  by  any  known 
principles  of  science  was  equally  clear  to  all  who 
saw  and  heard  them,  who  were  qualified  to  judge. 
Experts  in  science  went  to  Stratford  in  trium- 
phant expectation,  and  came  away  in  dogged 
silence,  convinced  of  nothing,  yet  solving  nothing. 
If  modern  science  had  nothing  to  show  more 
worthy  of  respect  than  its  solutions  of  Spiritual- 
ism, alchemy  would  be  its  equal,  and  astrology 
infinitely  its  superior.  It  will  never  do  to  con- 
sign a  delusion  so  seductive  to  the  ignorant,  and 
so  welcome  to  the  skeptic,  to  the  limbo  of  "  an  if," 
and  leave  it  there. 

To  my  father  the  whole  thing  was  a  visitation 
from  God.  He  bowed  to  the  affliction  in  sorrow 
and  in  prayer.  He  never  gave  credence  to  it  as  a 
revelation  of  religious  truth  for  an  hour.  The 
only  point  in  which  it  affected  his  interpretation 
of  the  Scriptures  was  that  of  the  biblical  demon- 
ology.  When  science  failed  to  give  him  an  ex- 
planation which  deserved  respect,  he  fell  back 
upon  the  historic  faith  of  the  Christian  Church  in 
the  personality  and  activity  of  angels,  good  and 
evil.  He  held  the  scriptural  demonology  as  a 
tentative  explanation  of  Spiritualism  until  science 
could  furnish  something  better.     But  long  before 


A  Pastor  of  the  Last  Creneration,  37 

his  decease  he  had  lost  his  interest  in  it;  and 
during  the  last  two  years  of  his  life  it  had  proba- 
bly faded  from  his  memory.  When  thanksgiving 
for  the  "precious  blood  of  Christ"  was  often 
heard  from  his  chamber,  he  was  sometimes  prompt 
to  deny  that  the  mysteries  of  Stratford  had  ever 
existed,  so  little  impression  had  they  left  upon 
him  as  the  origin  of  any  thing  in  his  religious 
faith. 

The  closing  years  of  his  life  were  years  of  hal- 
lowed peace.  With  the  exception  of  a  treacherous 
memory,  he  retained  his  mental  faculties  till  the 
last  half-year.  His  forecast  of  the  world's  future 
was  youthful  in  its  hopefulness.  It  had  always 
been  so.  Great  and  good  things  he  had  witnessed 
in  his  day,  but  greater  and  better  were  looming  in 
the  eastern  horizon.  Young  ministers  it  was  his 
wont  to  congratulate  on  their  privilege  of  living 
in  the  coming  age.  I  never  but  once  heard  from 
him  a  word  which  indicated  that  he  would  not 
gladly  live  his  life  over  again.  To  spend  a  half- 
hour  with  him  was  itself  a  benediction.  His 
youthful  pastor  at  Weehawken  "  counted  it  as  the 
chief  blessing  of  his  ministry  that  it  gave  him 
the  privilege  of  communion  with  the  old  prophet 
on  the  eve  of  his  translation." 

Of  the  final  scene  of  still  and  painless  ascension, 
what  shall  I  say?  —  "My  father,  my  father,  the 
chariot  of  Israel  and  the  horsemen  thereof." 


THE  EIGHTS  OP  BELIEVEES  IN"  ANCIENT  OKEEDS. 

PART   I. 

The  integrity  of  assent  to  venerable  creeds  is 
sometimes  questioned,  and  scruples  respecting  it 
are  sometimes  felt  through  the  ignoring  of  certain 
vital  principles. 

1.  The  professed  believer  in  such  a  creed  is  en- 
titled to  a  recognition  of  the  inevitable  changes  which 
time  brings  about  in  the  meayiing  of  language. 
Words  are  not  eternal.  No  precision  of  science 
can  make  them  so.  The  history  of  lexicography 
shows  that  words  may  slide  down  the  scale  of 
departure  from  their  original  sense  till  they  reach 
its  flat  contradiction. 

Dr.  Barrow  sa3^s  that  "men  ought  to  cherish  a 
fit  resentment  towards  God."  The  word  "resent- 
ment "  once  signified  the  return  of  grateful  af- 
fection for  favor  received.  It  signifies  just  the 
opposite  now. 

In  some  theological  systems,  and  not  very  dis- 
tant either,  the  words  "guilt  "  and  "  punishment  " 
had  meanings  which  no  popular  usage  now  affixes 
to  them,   if  popular  use   ever  did   accept   them. 

38 


The  Rights  of  Believers  in  Ancient  Creeds.     39 

"  Guilt "  meant  exposure  to  the  consequences  of 
sin;  " punishment,"  the  suffering  of  those  conse- 
quences. In  such  dialect,  innocence  might  be 
"guilty,"  saints  might  suffer  "punishment,"  our 
blessed  Lord  might  bear  the  punishment  of  a 
world's  transgressions.  Men  have,  therefore,  been 
pronounced  guilty  of  Adam's  sin,  and  threat- 
ened with  punishment  for  that  sin,  by  divines  who 
never  meant  to  teach  that  which  would  now  be 
understood  by  such  language.  They  meant  only 
that  men  are  exposed  to,  and  do  suffer,  the  conse- 
quences of  Adam's  sin.  They  no  more  meant  that 
men  are  ill  deserving  for  the  sin  of  Adam  than 
that  the  son  of  a  thief  deserves  the  penitentiary 
for  the  father's  crime. 

We  are  horrified  when  a  venerable  father  of  the 
Church  declares  that  Christ  was  guilty  of  the  sins 
of  the  elect,  and  that  he  suffered  punisliment  in 
their  stead.  But  many  who  have  used  such  phra- 
seology never  understood  by  it  what  it  seems  to 
say  to  modern  ears.  A  modern  believer  of  such 
a  creed,  then,  is  not  to  be  censured,  if  he  interprets 
it,  not  by  the  modern  lexicon,  but  by  the  ancient 
and  technical  theological  usage. 

2.  He  has  also  the  right  to  interpret  a  creeds  in 
'part^  hy  the  history  of  its  formation.  All  the  great 
confessions  of  the  Church  are  historic  monuments : 
so  are  some  of  the  creeds  of  our  ancient  local 
churches.  They  are  landmarks  of  Christian  opin- 
ion. They  grew  up  in  crises :  they  grew  out  of 
periods  of  agitation.     New  dangers  threatened  the 


40  My  Portfolio, 

faith  of  the  Church,  or  new  inspiration  enlight- 
ened and  expanded  it;  and  hence  a  new  creed 
was  born  to  express  the  new  intellectual  and 
spiritual  life.  Internal  conflicts  of  opinion,  or 
conflicts  with  infidelity  outside,  have  usually  been 
the  immediate  cause  of  the  creation  of  standards 
of  Christian  faith. 

That  precedent  and  contemporaneous  history 
could  not  fail  to  color  the  significance  of  the  con- 
fession of  faith  to  which  it  gave  birth.  Like  cause, 
like  effect.  Local  exigencies,  national  crises,  the 
convulsions  of  an  age,  gave  peculiar  senses  to 
terms;  they  emphasized  favorite  phrases;  they 
loaded  old  words  with  new  forces;  they  often 
wrenched  words  out  of  popular  into  technical 
usage.  Some  words  they  shelved  in  the  archives 
of  scholastic  thought,  and  left  them  there  to  die. 
Not  one  of  the  standard  creeds  of  the  Church  is 
a  perfectly  fair,  calm,  equipoised  compendium  of 
revealed  truth,  unbiased  by  the  temper  of  the 
times,  by  the  infirmities  of  blinded  science,  and 
specially  by  the  crudities  of  philosophical  schools. 
Not  one  of  them  has  the  serene  beauty  of  inspired 
proportions.  They  are  all  standards  of  the  mili- 
tant church.  They  are  symbols  of  opinion  boiling 
in  the  crucible  of  conflicting  and  often  intemper- 
ate thought.  They  have,  therefore,  a  belligerent 
outlook,  —  one  this  way,  another  that.  They  ex- 
alt some  truths  unduly,  and  depress  others.  Like 
the  valleys  and  mountains  of  the  globe,  they  are 
the  product  of  volcanic  cataclysms.     Some  of  them 


The  Rights  of  Believers  in  Ancient  Creeds.     41 

contain  gorges  like  those  of  Gondo  and  the  Via 
Mala.  Spots  there  are  in  them  on  which  the  sun 
never  shone. 

The  history  of  such  a  creed  is  essential  to  its 
interpretation.  The  modern  believer  has  the  right 
to  go  back,  and  unearth  that  buried  record.  He 
must  do  so  in  order  to  know  what  the  authors  of 
that  creed  really  meant.  Its  language  he  has  the 
right  often  to  interpret  by  what  they  meant,  rather 
than  by  what  to  modern  ears  they  seem  to  have 
said.  He  is  not  to  be  held  to  account,  but  ap- 
plauded rather,  if  he  lets  in  the  light  of  other  days 
upon  the  obscure  inscription.  In  adopting  it  as 
his  own,  he  may  honestly  give  to  it  a  meaning 
somewhat  other  than  that  seen  by  the  cursory 
reader  of  to-day. 

In  the  creed  of  the  Andover  Seminary  it  is 
declared  that  man  has  "  corporeal  strength  to  do 
all  that  God  requires  of  him."  To  one  not  well 
read  in  the  theological  controversies  of  New  Eng- 
land, this  seems  very  odd,  if  not  absurd,  phrase- 
ology. What  can  it  mean?  Have  grave  and 
learned  men  met  in  conclave  to  bind  the  instruct- 
ors of  the  clergy  through  all  time  to  teach  that 
men  have  power  of  blood  and  bones  and  sinews 
and  muscles  to  do  God's  bidding?  Wise  men 
have  debated  the  power  of  angels  to  dance  on  the 
point  of  a  needle,  and  have  essayed  to  count  them 
in  their  sport.  But  when  did  ever  theological 
wisdom  muddle  itself  with  such  a  crotchet  of  "  hu- 
man ability  "  as  this  ? 


42  My  Portfolio. 

Bat  a  little  fragment  of  history  solves  the  rid- 
dle. Among  the  founders  of  the  Andover  Semi- 
nary, two  schools  of  theology  were  represented. 
Two  seminaries  were,  in  fact,  in  embrj^o,  before 
the  friends  of  either  knew  of  the  conception  of 
the  other.  It  was  of  great  moment  that  the 
strength  of  the  New-England  churches,  then  de- 
pleted severely  by  the  Unitarian  departure,  should 
not  be  wasted  in  the  support  of  antagonist  schools 
of  divinity.  The  founders  of  the  one  held  stoutly 
to  what  was  then  called  the  "  natural  ability  "  of 
man  to  do  all  that  God  required  of  him.  The 
founders  of  the  other  as  stoutly  denied  this.  The 
very  phrase  had  become  odious  to  them.  It  ex- 
pressed a  pestilent  heresy.  The  Presbyterian 
Church,  thirty  years  later,  was  exploded  into 
halves  by  it. 

How  to  bring  the  two  embryo  schools  into  one 
was  the  problem.  For  a  long  time  it  was  a  vexed 
one.  Mr.  Phillips's  farms  at  Andover,  and  Mr. 
Norris's  keg  of  silver  dollars  over  which  he  prayed 
for  the  divine  acceptance,  were  waiting  for  their 
reverend  pastors  and  teachers  to  agree  upon  a 
creed  which  should  bear  the  test  of  all  coming 
time.  It  would  not  do  for  Dr.  Spring  and  his 
associates  to  insist  on  the  technical  yet  most  obvi- 
ous language  of  the  New  School,  by  saying  that 
men  have  "natural  ability."  Dr.  Morse  and  his 
friends  of  the  Old  School  would  have  flung  them- 
selves off  in  a  tangent  from  such  a  heresy.  Ovei 
one  of  the  points  of  controversy  between  them. 


The  Rights  of  Believers  in  Ancient  Creeds.     43 

said  one  of  the  leaders,  "  We  will  see  the  seminary 
sunk  in  the  sea,  before  we  will  set  our  hands  to 
such  a  dogma."  Therefore  the  creed  of  the 
united  body,  in  which  all  came  together  harmless 
as  doves,  if  not  wise  as  serpents,  was  made  to  read 
that  man  has  "corporeal  strength  to  do  all  that 
God  requires." 

A  poor  substitute  this  for  "  natural  ability,"  as 
read  by  the  rhetoric  of  to-day ;  but  any  thing  was 
better  than  eternal  war  over  two  words.  Thus 
Massachusetts  escaped  the  subsequent  theological 
history  of  Connecticut.  In  the  light  of  such  an 
episode  of  history  the  modern  subscriber  to  the 
creed  has  a  right  mentally  to  restore,  if  he  pleases, 
the  more  accurate  phrase,  "natural  ability,"  in 
place  of  the  crude  substitute.  "  Natural  ability  " 
was  what  they  all  meant,  if  they  had  but  known 
it.  It  is  right  for  their  modern  successors  to 
say  so. 

3.  The  foregoing  piece  of  history  suggests  also 
that  the  signer  of  an  ancient  creed  has  a  right  to 
recognize  and  reason  from  well-known  compromises 
contained  in  the  creed.  All  the  great  symbols  of 
the  Church's  faith  are  compromises.  From  the 
nature  of  the  case  they  must  be  such.  They  must 
have  been  such  in  the  intent  of  their  originators. 
No  political  platform  of  a  great  party  is  possible 
in  other  shape  than  that  of  compromise.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  Confession  of  any  great  section 
of  the  Church.  In  no  other  way  can  the  accord- 
ant  faith   of  a   multitude  of  earnest   and  wide- 


44  My  Portfolio. 

awake  minds  be  expressed  in  language.  In  every 
such  body  of  thinkers  the  Left  yields  something 
to  the  Right,  and  the  Right  yields  something  to 
the  Left,  and  the  Centre  gives  way  somewhat 
to  both.  Probably  no  creed  was  ever  formed,  or 
can  be,  to  be  the  standard  of  a  large  body  of 
believers,  which  any  one  of  its  original  framers 
could  accept  as  the  exact  and  sufficient  symbol  of 
his  own  belief,  without  abatement  and  without 
supplement.  Every  man  of  them  had  his  own 
gloss  to  put  upon  that  or  this :  all  had  an  appen- 
dix of  memoranda  and  errata  in  their  own  minds. 

The  Westminster  Catechism  was  such  a  compro- 
mise ;  so  was  the  Augsburg  Confession ;  so,  too, 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England, 
and  the  Confession  of  Dort.  To  an  ear  wonted 
to  the  clang  of  theological  debate,  the  silver  ring 
of  compromise  is  audible  in  them  all. 

This  fact  of  historic  compromise  is  often  a  very 
pregnant  one  to  a  modern  believer  in  defining  the 
sense  of  the  words  he  accepts.  He  is  entitled  to 
the  full  benefit  of  it :  nay,  he  is  bound  in  honor 
not  to  ignore  it.  He  has  the  right  to  say  that  a 
certain  extreme  of  theological  dogma  which  some 
may  find  in  the  creed,  and  would  force  upon  him, 
is  not  there,  because  it  is  contradictory  to  the 
spirit  of  the  compromise  in  which  the  creed  was 
framed. 

We  have  been  told,  for  instance,  that  the  New- 
England  theology  can  not  be  honestly  held  in  the 
terms  of  the  Westminster  Catechism,  and  there- 


The  Rights  of  Believers  in  Ancient  Creeds.     45 

fore  that  the  New-England  theologian  can  not 
honorably  subscribe  that  Confession.  We  deny 
it,  partly  on  the  ground  of  what  the  Catechism 
expressly  affirms,  but  partly,  also,  on  the  ground 
of  the  compromise  which  historically  it  represents. 
There  were  men  in  the  Westminster  Assembly 
who  held  the  essential  points  of  the  New-School 
theology  of  our  day;  not  in  modern  phrase  in- 
deed: they  did  not  hold  any  thing  in  modern 
phrase.  But  in  language  of  their  own,  equally 
significant,  they  held  to  the  freedom  of  the  human 
will  and  its  inevitable  corollaries.  They  never 
would  have  given  their  names  to  a  creed  designed, 
as  they  understood  it,  to  deny  that  necessary  be- 
lief of  the  human  mind. 

Under  cover  of  their  wing,  all  other  New-School 
believers  to  the  end  of  time  may  honestly  sub- 
scribe that  Confession  as  teaching,  and  meant  to 
teach,  the  essentials  of  their  own  theology.  What- 
ever some  phrases  of  the  Catechism,  without  his- 
toric note  or  comment,  may  seem  to  say,  the  docu- 
ment as  a  whole  can  not  have  been  designed  to 
teach  a  fatalistic  type  of  Calvinism,  because  of  the 
historic  fact  of  compromise  between  those  who 
held  that  type  and  those  who  denied  it.  Men 
were  there,  and  they  signed  their  names  to  the 
work  of  the  Assembly,  who  never  would  have 
done  so,  if,  in  their  own  judgment  or  that  of 
their  associates,  that  act  held  them  to  the  dogma 
of  unmitigated  fatalism. 

Even  the  Confession  of  Dort,  adopted  by  per- 


46  My  Portfolio, 

haps  the  most  rigidly  Calvinistic  body  of  di\dnes 
ever  convened  in  equal  numbers,  can  not  properly 
be  so  interpreted  that  a  New-School  theologian 
may  not  honestly  accept  it  with  his  interpretation ; 
for  the  spirit  of  compromise  was  there  also. 
Marks  of  it  are  visible  in  certain  paragraphs  which 
could  have  no  other  purpose. 

Said  one  of  the  leaders  of  that  famous  conclave, 
in  the  course  of  their  discussions,  quoting,  proba- 
bly, from  a  similar  utterance  in  the  Council  of 
Trent,  "  I  believe  in  both  the  decrees  of  God  and 
the  responsibility  of  man,  because  I  believe  in  cer- 
tainty with  power  to  the  contrary T  There  was  the 
central  principle  of  the  New-England  theology. 
The  Rev.  Dr.  Taylor  of  New  Haven,  and  the  Rev. 
Albert  Barnes  of  Philadelphia,  its  latest  repre- 
sentatives, and  the  defenders  of  it  in  its  final 
fruitage,  never  got  beyond  that  principle.  No  man 
who  held  it  could  have  set  his  hand  to  a  creed 
which  was,  as  those  of  Dort  and  Westminster  are 
often  claimed  to  be,  fatalistic  through  and  through. 


V. 

THE  EIGHTS  OF  BELIEVEES  DT  ANCIENT  CREEDS. 

PART    II. 

4.  The  compromises  of  ecclesiastical  standards, 
to  which  allusion  has  been  made,  suggest  a  fourth 
principle,  which  should  in  equity  regulate  the 
modern  indorsement  of  them.  It  is,  that  the 
believer  has  a  right  to  his  own  method  of  recon- 
ciling  the  contradictions  of  a  creed. 

Where  is  the  historic  creed,  which,  strictly  inter- 
preted, does  not  involve  self-contradictions?  So 
many  and  so  profound  are  the  opposites  in  truth, 
that  human  speech  can  scarcely  utter  them  vigor- 
ously, except  in  forms  of  statement  which  crowd 
opposites  into  contraries.  Of  course  they  are  not 
contraries,  but  vivid  statement  makes  them  ap- 
pear such.  The  best  conceptions  of  them  by 
earnest  thinkers  seem  irreconcilable.  The  think- 
ing of  an  age  which  forces  a  great  creed  into 
being  will  express  its  standard  formulae  in  no 
wary  or  diplomatic  shape.  These  come  forth 
rather  in  weighted  if  not  impassioned  language. 
They  leap,  full-grown,  into  stalwart  frame,  like 
the  mail-clad  warriors  of  the  age  in  which  they 

47 


48  My  Portfolio, 

are  born.  They  seem  as  if  heralded  by  challenge 
to  battle  to  all  comers. 

These  opposites,  of  which  all  deepest  truth  is 
full,  the  authors  of  the  great  Confessions  have 
commonly  chosen  to  express,  as  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  said  all  contradictions  should  be 
"  reconciled,"  —  "  Never  explain  contradictions, 
but  assert  both  extremes  vehemently."  So  the 
contradictions  of  historic  creeds  are  not  loaded 
with  philosophic  adjustments  in  nice  and  trembling 
balance,  but  with  unqualified  assertions  rather  of 
both  belligerents.  There  is  more  of  sound  phi- 
losophy than  appears  at  the  first  blush  in  this  ap- 
parent ignoring  of  philosophy.  Such  truths  as 
election  and  ability,  decrees  and  prayer,  regenera- 
tion and  repentance,  the  deity  of  our  Lord  and 
his  humanity,  the  peril  of  apostasy  and  the  per- 
severance of  the  saints,  can  not  well  be  so  for- 
mulated as  either  to  awaken  an  earnest  faith,  or 
to  express  it,  except  in  language,  which,  to  say 
the  least,  borders  hard  upon  downright  contrariety. 
The  deepest  thinking  must  evolve  them  in  such 
militant  shape,  or  fail  to  reach  by  them  the  deepest 
feeling.  "  Deep  calleth  unto  deep."  The  collision 
is  but  the  mingling  of  mighty  waters. 

The  existence  of  such  seeming  contradictions 
in  the  standard  Confessions  of  Christendom  must 
be  conceded.  Then,  to  each  believer  must  be 
granted  the  independent  right  to  his  own  way  of 
reconciling  them.  Each  must  be  allowed  to  have 
his  own  philosophy.     It  is  his  right  to  dovetail 


The  Rights  of  Believers  in  Ancient  Creeds,     49 

things  by  his  own  mechanism.  Wide  asunder  as 
the  poles  the  philosophies  may  be :  that  matters 
not.  Sufficient  is  it,  if  the  resulting  faith,  as  a 
whole,  is  held  fast,  and  honest  hands  clasp  each 
other.  My  philosophy  may  be  the  mumbling  of 
idiocy  to  you,  and  yours  may  be  the  raving  of 
mania  to  me ;  yet  we  may  both  be  honest  men, 
true  believers,  and  as  clear-headed  as  the  average 
of  men  in  accepting  the  same  form  of  sound  words. 
Your  perspective  of  truth  may  bring  to  the  fore- 
ground a  doctrine  which  mine  would  thrust  to  the 
rear;  yours  may  lay  bare  to  the  tropic  sunlight 
a  truth  which  mine  would  veil  in  a  lunar  twilight ; 
yours  may  exalt  God,  and  mine  may  arouse  man ; 
you  may  preach  sovereignty,  and  I  may  preach 
duty ;  you  may  bow  reverently  before  our  Lord's 
divinity,  and  I  may  cling  tremblingly  to  his  human- 
ity. What  matters  it  ?  Each  must  say,  "  This  is 
my  infirmity."  Let  us  be  glad,  if,  even  inconsist- 
ently, we  join  hands  after  all. 

Our  grandest  creeds  —  those  which  have  done 
best  service  to  the  Church,  and  have  gathered  to 
themselves  the  wealth  of  the  ages  in  the  reverent 
affection  of  believers  —  are  meant  to  embrace  such 
diversities  of  temperament,  and  of  mental  idiosyn- 
crasy, and  of  national  tastes,  and  of  the  bias  of 
race,  yet  to  bind  them  all  in  the  unity  of  the 
spirit  and  the  bond  of  peace.  So  must  we  be 
content  to  receive  them.  It  is  my  right  to  inter- 
pret your  favorite  dogma  by  the  balancing  oppo- 
site in  mine.     We  must  not  peck  at  each  other's 


60  3Iy  Portfolio. 

eyeballs,  because  each  prefers  to  look  out  from 
his  favorite  eyry.  We  both  see  through  a  glass 
darkly.  We  must  not  pry  too  curiously  into  each 
other's  methods  of  deliverance  from  self-contradic- 
tion. We  are  neither  of  us  hypocrites  for  not 
petting  each  other's  philosophies. 

5.  The  believer  of  an  ancient  Confession  is 
entitled  also,  within  certain  limits,  to  a  help,  which, 
for  the  want  of  a  better  definition,  I  will  call.  The 
logic  of  the  drift  of  a  creed.  Great  symbols  of 
the  life  of  the  Church  mean  often  more  than  they 
say.  They  are  symbols  not  only  of  a  fixed  faith, 
never  of  a  perfectly  finished  faith,  but  of  a  blind 
reaching  after  unknown  discovery.  They  are 
landmarks  of  a  line  of  march,  of  which  the  final 
fortress  is  not  yet  reached. 

John  Robinson's  imperial  message,  "  God  has 
y  more  truth  yet  to  break  forth  from  his  Holy 
Word,"  is  hinted  at  in  a  certain  leaning-for- 
ward of  our  best  Confessions  into  the  thought  of 
subsequent  ages.  They  read  like  prophecies. 
We  interpret  them  by  their  fulfillment  in  the 
work  of  later  thinkers.  Their  reverent  authors 
seem  as  if  hearkening  for  the  voice  of  new 
revelations.  They  evidently  believed  more  than 
they  have  recorded  for  our  instruction.  They 
were  men  of  progress.  They  had  unspoken 
visions.  Had  they  lived  to  our  times,  they 
would  have  seen  more  truth,  and  proclaimed  it 
authoritatively.  They  would  have  proportioned 
and   balanced    and    shaded    Christian    doctrines 


The  Rights  of  Believers  in  Ancient  Creeds.     51 

more  architecturally.  They  would  have  heard 
more  distinctly  the  music  of  the  spheres.  We 
can  not  help  seeing,  in  what  they  did  declare,  the 
signs  of  what  they  would  have  taught,  and  where 
their  convictions  would  have  ranked  them  among 
the  theologians  of  to-day.  The  drift  of  their 
teachings  necessitates  the  admission  of  more 
truth,  like  the  discovery  of  Neptune  through 
Leverrier's  foresight. 

This  logic  of  the  drift  of  a  great  system  of 
theology  it  is  the  right  of  a  modern  believer  to 
recognize,  and,  within  certain  limits^  to  use  as  a 
help  to  its  intepretation.  He  is  at  liberty  to  read 
between  the  lines.  He  may,  for  instance,  qualify 
extremes  by  the  hints  of  their  unspoken  opposites. 
In  short,  he  may  interpret  the  system  as  a  whole 
by  its  obvious  and  indubitable  though  bungling 
sympathy  with  the  discoveries  of  later  times. 

''  Within  certain  limits,"  I  repeat.  True,  this 
is  a  perilous  principle.  It  can  be  easily  abused. 
So  may  all  the  vital  principles  which  govern 
speech.  But  it  is  a  true  principle,  and  valuable, 
nevertheless.  In  the  thinking  of  a  reverent  and 
ingenuous  mind  it  may  serve  to  relieve  a  creed 
from  downright  absurdities. 

This  principle  is  of  special  value  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  those  portions  of  the  creeds  which 
concern  the  freedom  of  the  human  will,  and  its 
theological   corollaries.^      On   this  subject,  truth 

1  One  or  two  paragraphs  in  this  connection  have  appeared  in 
another  volume  by  the  author. 


52  My  Portfolio, 

has  been  of  slow  and  toilsome  growth.  She  has 
crept  and  limped  up  the  great  highway  of  human 
opinion.  With  a  great  sum  obtained  we  this 
freedom.  Pagan  theology  everywhere  was  and  is 
saturated  to  the  point  of  stupor  with  fatalism. 
The  early  Christian  thought  was  drugged  with 
the  same  poison.  The  clear  enunciation  of  the 
liberty  of  the  human  will,  and  the  consistent 
teaching  of  the  consequent  truth  of  man's  abili- 
ty, has  been,  in  the  main,  the  product  of  the 
Christian  thinking  of  the  last  two  hundred  years. 
We  owe  it  largely  to  the  political  and  civil  history 
of  the  Netherlands. 

Some  of  the  historic  creeds  of  Christendom, 
therefore,  are  wofully  disproportioned  on  this 
class  of  doctrines.  They  qualify  to  death  what 
they  have  affirmed,  and  raise  from  the  dead  what 
they  have  disowned.  They  emphasize  the  sover- 
eignty of  God,  and  blur  the  responsibility  of  man. 
They  thunder  the  doctrine  of  decrees,  and  whisper 
or  stammer  the  truth  of  man's  ability.  In  all  that 
renders  God  august  and  terrible,  their  sound  is  the 
blast  of  a  trumpet.  In  all  that  should  quicken 
man's  consciousness  of  moral  dignity  and  duty, 
their  voice  is  but  the  reverberation  of  a  distant 
and  doubtful  echo.  Sometimes  man's  ability  to 
do  his  duty  is  taught  by  inference  only.  Yet  in 
them  all  are  to  be  found  hints  of  it  and  of  its 
kindred  doctrines.  Implications  of  them  abound. 
Leanings-forward  and  outstretched  hands  are  visi- 
ble towards  the  more  absolute  forms  of  them  in 
our  modern  theology. 


The  Rights  of  Believers  in  Ancient  Creeds,     53 

It  is  right,  therefore,  to  read  such  creeds  in  the 
light  of  their  obvious  drift  in  this  respect.  Pre- 
monitions of  later  discoveries  in  theologic  science 
are  as  much  a  part  of  the  creeds  as  their  plain 
record  of  the  earlier  theologic  beliefs.  We  must 
admit  and  trust  those  premonitions.  In  no  other 
way  can  we  come  at  the  whole  mind  of  the  ven- 
erable authors  of  our  standards.  Not  otherwise, 
it  may  be,  can  we  save  a  revered  symbol  of  our 
faith  from  absolute  hostility  to  modern  beliefs, 
and  a  revolt  of  the  sympathies  of  our  own  times. 
Not  otherwise  can  we  preserve  to  our  theologic 
formulse  the  support  of  historic  prestige,  for  the 
want  of  which  we  labor  at  such  disadvantage  in 
the  controversy  with  the  Church  of  Rome.  As 
the  world  grows  older,  the  prestige  of  age  becomes 
more  and  more  valuable  in  the  standards  which 
claim  its  religious  faith.  Other  things  being  equal, 
those  will  sway  the  future  who  bring  to  its  con- 
quest the  heaviest  forces  and  swiftest  momentum 
of  the  past. 

6.  The  believer  in  an  ancient  Confession  of 
Faith  has  the  right  to  subscribe  it  as  a  whole,  with- 
out being  held  to  indorsement  of  its  every  detail. 
Literalists  may  sneer  as  they  will  at  the  phrase 
"  for  substance  of  doctrine ; "  but  the  use  of  it 
is  a  sheer  necessity  to  the  adoption  of  any  creed  in 
any  age  by  any  multitude  of  thinking  men. 

Still  more  necessary  is  it  in  the  profession  of  a 
creed  inherited  from  ancestral  standards.  Water, 
even  iron,  may  be  made  to  run  in  grooves :  not  so 


54  My  Portfolio. 

thought.  In  the  great  essentials  of  a  great  faith, 
independent  minds  in  innumerable  hosts  may 
accord  for  ever;  but  in  the  minutise  of  incident 
and  of  diction,  and  sj)ecially  of  shading  and  pro- 
portion, never,  even  in  dozens  and  for  an  hour. 
They  never  have  done  it.  They  never  will. 
The  Architect  of  mind  has  not  so  made  mind. 
Only  in  profoundest  ignorance  and  brutish  vacu- 
ity of  thought  can  literal  uniformity  of  faith  exist. 
Only  under  the  hoof  of  ecclesiastical  tyranny  will 
the  enforcement  of  it  be  attempted. 

The  examiners  of  a  candidate  for  one  of  the 
chairs  in  the  Andover  Seminary  once  sounded  him 
upon  his  reading  of  the  Westminster  Confession. 
He  assented  to  it  "for  substance  of  doctrine." 
One  of  the  reverend  fathers  demurred.  Another, 
the  late  Rev.  Dr.  Humphrey  of  Amherst  College, 
whom  none  will  accuse  of  theological  vagaries, 
replied,  "  No  mortal  man  with  a  mind  of  his  own 
ever  accepted  the  Westminster  Catechism  with- 
out qualifications  of  his  own."  He  was  right. 
The  same  is  true  of  any  Confession,  unless  it  be 
some  brief  compendium  of  historic /ac^  rather  than 
of  doctrine^  like  the  Apostles'  Creed.  He  must  not, 
then,  be  held  to  account  as  a  trickster  who  signs 
reverently  our  elaborate  and  ancient  standards 
"for  substance  of  doctrine."  Nor  should  the  con- 
science of  any  believer  be  goaded  by  condemning 
scruples  for  doing  the  same  thing  in  accepting  the 
creed  of  the  local  church.  It  is  his  right.  In 
doing  it   he  is  only  doing   that   which   its   very 


The  Rights  of  Believers  in  Ancient  Creeds,     bb 

authors  did  when  it  expressed  their  freshest 
thought.  Such  qualification  of  assent  is  a  neces- 
sity to  all  consensus  of  many  minds  to  an  instru- 
ment constructed  by  a  distant  generation,  and 
elaborated  by  the  ablest  thinking  of  its  age. 

7.  The  foregoing  principles  need  to  be  qualified 
by  one  other,  to  prevent  abuse.  It  is,  that  the  sub- 
scriber to  one  of  the  ancient  creeds  has  no  right 
to  mutilate  hy  his  interpretation  the  great  structural 
ele77ie7its  of  that  creed  ivhich  make  it  what  it  is,  and 
which,  in  one  form  or  another,  all  the  great  historic 
Confessions  affirm.  I  refer  here  to  those  Confes- 
sions only  which  may  fairly  be  taken  as  expressing 
the  matured  and  complete  faith  of  the  Church,  dat- 
ing from  the  Athanasian  Creed  downward ;  not 
those  which  represent  its  mfantile  attempts  at 
systematic  belief,  nor  those  constructed  chiefly  to 
counteract  partial  errors. 

These  historic  creeds,  expressing  the  present 
faith  of  Christendom,  are  attempts  to  do  what  the 
Scriptures  do  not  profess  to  do,  —  to  reduce  the 
Christian  faith  to  system.  Infirml}^  yet  intelligi- 
bly they  have  done  this.  They  all  contain  a  cer- 
tain rounded  structure,  in  which  certain  doctrines 
fit  in  to  each  other,  and  are  emphasized  as  essen- 
tials. Respecting  those  central  and  essential 
truths,  the  authors  of  the  great  Confessions  never 
meant  to  compromise.  They  felt  no  need  of  com- 
promise. So  far,  they  saw  eye  to  eye.  The  evolu- 
tion of  belief  through  ages  of  discussion  has 
tended  not  to  obscure  or  to  qualify  those  grand 


56  My  Portfolio, 

essentials,  but  to  define  and  enforce  them  as  the 
faith  delivered  to  the  saints. 

We  commonly  designate  these  truths  as  "  The 
Doctrines  of  Grace."  The  being  and  sovereignty 
of  God,  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  the  depravity 
of  man,  the  necessity  of  regeneration,  the  trini- 
ty of  the  Godhead,  the  atonement  of  Christ,  the 
eternity  of  future  rewards  and  punishments, — 
these  are  the  essentials  of  the  system.  They  fall 
naturally  into  accord  with  each  other.  They  in- 
tensify and  buttress  each  other.  They  are  not 
matters  of  philosophy,  much  as  we  may  philoso- 
phize about  them.  They  are  revealed  facts.  If 
one  of  them  is  compromised  or  denied,  they  all 
sooner  or  later  suffer.  It  is  a  vital  point  in  the 
argument  for  any  one  of  them,  that  it  is  needed 
for  the  self-consistency  and  the  intensity  of  the 
system  as  a  whole.  Abstract  any  one  of  them, 
and  all  the  rest  collapse  somewhat  from  the  full- 
ness of  their  meaning.  The  main  object,  therefore, 
of  systematic  creeds,  has  been  to  protect  them  one 
and  all,  and  one  as  much  as  another. 

A  believer  in  one  of  these  matured  and  standard 
denominational  creeds  of  the  Church,  therefore, 
has  no  right  so  to  use  the  liberty  of  individual 
interpretation  as  to  throw  out,  or  to  obscure,  any 
one  of  these  structural  elements.  He  has  no  right 
to  claim  that  he  accepts  the  creed  ''  for  substance 
of  doctrine,"  if  he  rejects  any  one  of  them.  He 
has  no  authority  to  say  that  one  of  them  is  not 
essential  to  the  system  of  truth  which  the  creeds 


The    Rights  of  Believers  in  Ancient  Creeds.     57 

are  meant  to  define.  The  overwhelming  consensus 
of  the  Church  has  declared  that  every  one  of  them 
is  essential.  The  assemblies  which  framed  the 
creeds  in  expression  of  that  faith  have  pronounced 
them  essential. 

If,  then,  I  have  a  later  revelation  which  assures 
me  otherwise,  so  be  it.  The  Church  has  no  right 
to  molest  me  in  my  right  to  believe  or  to  deny. 
To  God  I  stand  or  fall,  not  to  man.  But  the 
Church  has  the  right  to  say  that  I  shall  not  shelter 
my  denial  under  cover  of  her  creeds,  and  claim 
therefor  her  fellowship  and  indorsement.  The 
consensus  of  the  Church  Universal  to  the  few  cen- 
tral facts  of  the  system  of  grace  lifts  them  out 
of  the  range  of  individual  liberty  in  interpreting 
the  creeds  which  contain  them.  I  have  no  right 
to  use  my  liberty  of  interpretation  to  their  de- 
struction. There  they  stand,  stamped  with  the 
impress  of  ages  of  Christian  belief.  There  they 
must  stand  for  ever  to  all  who  would  use  those 
creeds  as  the  expression  of  their  faith,  and  their 
passport  as  religious  teachers  to  the  confidence 
of  mankind. 


TI. 

THE  BIBLICAL  DOOTEINE  OP  EETEIBUTION. 

It  is  needful,  at  times,  to  take  our  theologic 
bearings  anew,  that  we  may  know  whither  we  are 
advancing.  Such  a  necessity  seems  to  exist  at 
present  respecting  the  doctrine  of  retribution. 
Three  elements  in  it  appear  to  demand  emphasis. 

1.  It  is  essential  to  the  doctrine  of  retribution 
that  it  should  be  held  with  an  intensity  of  concep- 
tion which  shall  justify  the  use  of  the  biblical  em- 
blems  of  the  future  pmiishment  of  sin.  This  sug- 
gests one  point  at  which  a  perfectly  honest  mind 
may  unconsciously  let  in  a  flood  of  error.  As 
pictured  rather  than  defined  by  the  biblical  sym- 
bols, the  doctrine  has  an  intense  severity  which  is 
abhorrent  to  some  of  the  profoundest  instincts  of 
our  nature.  The  glare  of  it  scorches  the  natural 
eye.  We  instinctively  turn  from  it  with  conster- 
nation. We  ask.  Is  there  not  something  unreal, 
Oriental,  hyperbolic,  in  these  fearful  emblems? 
Were  they  not  designed  for  a  bygone  age  ?  May 
not  our  Occidental  and  modern  civilization  treat 
them  as  obsolete  ?  or,  if  not  obsolete  to  the  modern 
pulpit,  should  they  not  be  restricted  to  preach- 

58 


The  Biblical  Doctrine  of  Retribution,        59 

ing  addressed  to  natures  exceptionally  sensuous 
and  depraved  ? 

President  Edwards's  extreme  and  extra-biblical 
painting  of  the  future  woe  has  been  sometimes 
defended  on  the  ground  that  he  was  preaching  to 
savages.  To  their  notions  of  penal  justice,  fire 
was  a  familiar  element.  They  used  it  in  their  own 
administration  of  savage  law,  and  they  bore  it 
without  flinching.  Their  torpid  sensibilities  could 
not  be  quickened  into  fear  of  God  or  man  by  any 
thing  less  terrific.  May  not  the  whole  scenery  of 
the  retributive  life  hereafter,  as  depicted  in  the 
Scriptures,  be  in  a  similar  way  restricted,  and  to 
us  made  void  of  meaning  ?  Down  the  sloping 
plane  indicated  by  these  queries,  entirely  honest 
and  reverent  inquiry  on  the  subject  may  be  in 
danger  of  sliding,  to  its  own  hurt.  The  danger 
grows  with  the  growth  of  educated  sensibilities. 

Yet,  when  we  turn  to  the  word  of  God,  there 
these  emblems  of  eternal  woe  stand,  as  real  and  as 
lurid  as  when  they  were  first  painted.  What  they 
meant  then,  they  mean  now.  Whatever  was  the 
range  of  their  application  then,  it  is  now.  Fire, 
the  lake  of  fire,  the  flame  of  brimstone,  the  undy- 
ing worm,  the  gnashing  of  teeth,  the  bottomless 
pit,  the  place  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels, 
— these  are  all  as  if  written  yesterday  on  a  flaming 
scroll  in  the  sky.  They  were  uttered  by  One  who 
came  to  express  to  the  world  the  ultimate  thoughts 
of  God.  No  hint  appears  that  they  belong  to  an 
obsolescent  theology.     No  promise  is  given  of  any 


60  My  Portfolio, 

alleviation  of  their  terrors  in  the  coming  ages. 
They  were  originated  also  by  Him  who  came  to 
represent,  above  all  other  teachings,  the  love  of 
God.  Yet  not  a  hint  is  uttered  that  they  need 
any  glossary  to  explain  them  into  consistency  with 
the  divine  benevolence.  The  very  Person  of 
divine  love  utters  them  as  calmly  as  if  they  were 
the  picture  of  a  summer's  morning.  He  has  left 
us  no  intimation  that  they  need  any  reticent  treat- 
ment, or  that,  in  any  golden  age  to  come,  they  ever 
will  need  it,  to  vindicate  the  ways  of  God  to  men. 
The  scroll  is  unrolled  before  our  startled  vision, 
and  left  there,  think  what  we  may  of  it,  and  do 
what  we  will  with  it. 

2.  Equally  essential  to  the  integrity  of  the  doc- 
trine of  retribution  is  the  element  of  its  endless 
duration.  Unbiased  readers  of  the  Scriptures  are 
substantially  a  unit  in  the  belief,  that,  interpreted 
as  a  whole,  they  teach  this  beyond  reasonable 
doubt.  Whatever  be  the  sense  of  the  crucial 
word  on  which  this  phase  of  the  doctrine  rests  in 
certain  proof-texts,  it  does  not  rest  on  that  word 
alone,  or  in  chief.  The  implications  of  the  Bible 
are  an  invincible  cordon  of  proof  in  its  defense. 
As  a  system,  the  biblical  theology  necessitates  it. 
That  theology  is  fatally  enervated,  if  deprived  of 
this  element  of  eternity  in  the  threatening  of  penal 
justice.  By  the  absence  of  it,  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  God  in  its  penal  administration  is  revolu- 
tionized. 

It  will  never  do,  then,  for  a  man  to  say,  "  I  be- 


The  Biblical  Doctrine  of  Retribution,        61 

lieve  in  retribution,  in  a  future  retribution,  in  a 
fearful  retribution,  in  a  retribution  the  magni- 
tude of  which  reaches  to  the  limit  of  human 
thought ;  I  believe  in  all  that  our  Lord  meant  by 
his  intensest  utterances :  but  of  the  element  of 
time  I  affirm  not ;  that  is  not  essential  to  the  inner 
sense  of  the  divine  word."  The  answer  is  prompt 
and  clear :  The  Scriptures  do  affirm  of  the  ele- 
ment of  time.  They  employ  language  which  means 
that,  if  it  means  any  thing.  They  disclose  a  sys- 
tem of  correlated  truths  which  are  built  together 
like  an  arch,  of  which  not  one  stone  can  be 
spared ;  and,  of  that  system  of  faith,  the  endless- 
ness of  conscious  life  in  the  suffering  of  penal  woe 
is  an  element  most  vital  to  all  the  rest.  So  the 
consensus  of  the  ages  has  read  the  record :  so  the 
great  historic  creeds  of  the  Church  have  inter- 
preted and  re-affirmed  it.  To  deny  it  is  to  deny 
the  authority  of  the  common  sense  of  men  in  the 
interpretation  of  that  of  which  it  is  amply  compe- 
tent to  speak. 

The  truth  on  this  point  may  be  reflected  from 
another  mirror.  If  the  "  time-element "  is  not  es- 
sential to  the  fullness  of  the  doctrine,  why  care  for 
it  on  the  side  of  limitation  more  than  on  that  of 
eternity  ?  If  time  indefinite  and  time  endless  are 
practically  the  same  in  the  intensity  which  they 
kindle  in  the  doctrine,  why  not  accept  the  time 
endless  as  the  equivalent  of  both?  Why  not 
thus  gain  the  advantage,  in  popular  discourse  at 
least,  of  making  the  Scriptures  mean  that  which 


62  My  Portfolio, 

to  the  popular  mind  they  seem  to  mean?  Why 
change  the  ancient  conception,  if  the  change 
means  nothing  ?  The  fact  most  vital  to  the  argu- 
ment is,  that  the  change  does  mean  something. 
The  two  conceptions,  of  infinite  duration  and  in- 
definite duration,  are  not  the  same  to  the  common 
sense  of  men.  When  affirmed  of  retributive  woe, 
the  change  from  endlessness  to  indefiniteness  does 
diminish  the  fearful  intensity  of  the  truth.  It  in- 
troduces untold  possibilities  of  relief.  It  does  lift 
off  that  which,  to  the  majority  of  minds,  is  the 
chief  weight,  from  the  intolerable  burden  of  the 
"  wrath  of  God."  This  is  the  reason  w^hy  our  af- 
frighted and  tortured  sensibilities  shrink  from  the 
ancient  faith,  and  seek  this  cloud-land.  It  is  be- 
cause here  eternity  is  veiled  by  something  which 
is  less  than  eternity.  This  does  encroach  upon  the 
very  substance  of  the  faith.  Otherwise,  men 
would  not  crave  it,  as  they  do,  in  their  search  after 
God's  meaning. 

3.  The  present  trend  of  inquiry  on  the  subject 
gives  special  prominence  to  another  element  in  the 
doctrine  of  retribution.  It  is  that  of  the  decision 
of  the  retributive  destiny  by  the  experience  of  the 
present  life.  On  this  point,  also,  it  will  not  do  for 
a  religious  teacher  to  say,  "  I  do  not  know."  He 
ought  to  know.  Inspired  instructors  assume  that 
they  do  know.  If  any  one  thing  is  made  clear  by 
the  whole  drift  and  structure  of  revelation,  it  is 
this,  that  probation  begins  and  ends  with  this  life. 
Our  Lord's   teachings  suggest  neither  doubt  of 


The  Biblical  Doctrine  of  Retribution.        63 

this  fact  nor  exception  to  it.  Apostolic  instruc- 
tions suggest  neither.  This  is  not  a  subject  on 
which  it  is  reasonable  to  believe  that  a  revelation 
from  heaven  has  taught  nothing.  The  when  and 
the  where  of  probation  enter  into  the  very  fact  of 
probation.  The  Scriptures  furnish  as  much  evi- 
dence that  our  probation  began  in  a  former  world, 
as  that  it  will  be  continued  or  supplemented  in 
a  world  to  come.  Kegenerate  character  started 
into  being  here  may  be  improved,  developed,  fin- 
ished, in  a  future  life  which  is  not  the  perfected 
heavenly  life.  But  this  is  education,  and  educa- 
tion is  not  probation.  It  is  probation  which  de- 
termines the  great  moral  distinction  of  character 
as  right  or  wrong  ;  and  this  the  Bible  everywhere 
assumes  to  be  the  work  of  one  life  and  one  only. 
On  the  deeds  done  in  the  body  the  retributive  ex- 
perience depends. 

Nor  is  it  safe  to  say  that  this  is  not  an  essential 
truth.  What  truth  can  be,  in  some  relations  of 
it,  more  essential?  Is  it  non-essential  to  a  dying 
man  whether  or  not  he  is  about  to  enter  another 
world  of  probationary  opportunity?  To  a  mind 
awakened  to  the  realities  of  eternity,  and  asking, 
"  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  "  is  it  of  no  moment 
that  all  chances  of  salvation  end  here  ?  Could  a 
revival  of  religion  ever  have  existed,  if  the  pulpit 
had  been  shorn  of  this  element  of  its  power  ? 
Could  St.  Paul  have  preached  the  gospel  success- 
fully without  it  ?  Look  at  its  bearing  on  the  whole 
theory  of  missions  to  the  heathen.     Would  it  not 


\ 


64  My  Portfolio, 

seem  to  many  minds  to  be  a  work  of  dubious  be- 
nevolence to  impose  on  lieatlien  tribes  the  intense 
tests  of  cliaracter  which  Christianity  creates,  if 
without  them  the  heathen  soul  might  find  its  pro- 
bation in  another  world  ?  When  Alexander  Duff 
fired  the  heart  of  Scotland  on  the  subject  of  mis- 
sions to  India,  the  new  departure  was  opposed  by 
the  "  Moderates "  in  the  General  Assembly,  as 
"  tending  to  disturb  the  moral  chances  of  happy 
and  contented  Pagans."  One  part  of  the  argu- 
ment was,  that,  as  they  had  little  chance  here,  they 
might,  if  they  were  let  alone,  have  another  else- 
where. The  sequence  is  inevitable  from  even  the 
conjecture  of  probation  in  another  world :  ''  If 
another,  surely  a  better  world  than  this ;  let  us 
wait  for  it !  "  So  the  mind  instinctively  reasons. 
The  validity  of  these  views  is  not  affected  un- 
favorably by  the  fact  that  the  Scriptures  nowhere 
expressly  affirm  the  non-existence  of  probation  in 
the  life  to  come.  It  is  not  the  usage  of  inspiration 
to  affirm  negatives.  Besides,  the  absence  of  such 
affirmation  is  rather  a  sign  of  the  confidence  of 
the  inspired  mind  in  the  truth  concerned.  There 
is  a  class  of  truths,  of  which  the  presumptive  and 
implied  evidences  are  so  conclusive,  that  to  load 
them  down  with  further  proof  would  weaken 
them.  Of  one  such  truth  our  Lord  said,  "  If  it 
were  not  so,  I  would  have  told  you."  So  of  the 
doctrine  now  before  us :  if  it  were  not  true  that 
probation  is  limited  to  this  mundane  life,  a  revela- 
tion from  God  would  surely  have  told  us.     On 


The  Biblical  Doctrine  of  Retribution.       Q^ 

such  a  point  we  need  to  know  the  truth  and  the 
whole  truth.  A  message  from  heaven  would  have 
been  singularly  defective  and  delusive,  if  it  had 
professed  to  teach  us  the  way  of  salvation,  and  yet 
had  been  so  framed  as  to  leave  such  a  truth  in 
doubt.  The  assumptions  and  implications  of  the 
Bible,  all  pointing  one  way,  leave  us  not  a  shadow 
of  a  reason  for  even  the  conjecture  of  a  doubt. 

The  three  elements  of  the  doctrine  of  retribu- 
tion here  affirmed  can  not,  then,  be  safely  held  in 
abeyance  by  a  Christian  preacher.  Commonly  it 
is  true  that  a  conscientious  inquirer  believes  more 
than  he  thinks  he  does.  He  may  tread  reverently 
along  the  heights  and  in  the  depths  of  the  truth 
of  God.  For  this  he  should  not  be  suspected  of 
unbelief,  though  his  reverent  spirit  may  express 
itself  in  the  forms  of  doubt.  But,  when  it  comes 
to  such  solid  essentials  of  truth  as  those  here  con- 
sidered, doubt  ceases  to  be  pertinent.  One  who 
would  assume  the  office  of  a  preacher,  and  who 
seeks,  therefore,  the  indorsement  of  the  Church, 
should  know  what  he  knows.  He  should  be  able  to 
declare  it  with  full  and  bold  assertion.  One  posi- 
tive word  is  worth  a  dozen  points  of  interrogation. 


YII. 

THE  PUEITAir  THEORY  OP  AMUSEMENTS. 

The  Christian  theory  of  amusements  is  under- 
going revision.  In  the  process,  the  Puritan  char- 
acter is  liable  to  suffer  some  foreshortening.  A 
few  historic  facts  may  help  to  keep  it  in  its  true 
perspective. 

1.  One  is  the  fact  that  the  Puritan's  theory  of 
amusements  was  interwoven  with  his  struggle  for 
religious  liberty.  The  famous  "  Book  of  Sports  " 
was  one  of  his  crying  grievances.  No  matter 
what  was  the  character  of  such  a  book  in  itself 
considered,  be  it  as  harmless  as  a  baby's  rattle, 
it  was  an  offense  to  the  Puritans  as  an  interfer- 
ence of  the  government  with  their  religious  con- 
victions and  the  instructions  of  their  religious 
teachers. 

Human  nature  does  not  vary  much  under  such 
grievances.  We  all  resent  the  interloping  of  the 
State  in  religious  matters,  unless  the  State  plants 
itself  on  "the  right  side."  The  more  petty  the 
object,  the  more  fierce  the  resistance.  So  thought 
the  Puritans.  It  was  an  offense  to  them  that  the 
king  should  interfere   at   all   on   such   a   matter. 

66 


The  Puritan  Theory  of  Amusements.        67 

Still  more  did  they  object  to  being  denounced  as 
recusants,  becciuse  they  would  not  dance  around 
a  Maypole.  When  did  ever  a  Christian  govern- 
ment, on  such  a  subject,  refuse  to  let  alone  the 
consciences  of  full-grown  matrons  and  bearded 
men? 

Under  such  irritation  it  was  inevitable  that  the 
Puritan  conscience  should  grow  fanatical.  Con- 
science is  elastic  in  more  ways  than  one.  Put  it 
under  pressure  of  law  repellent  to  its  convictions, 
and  it  will  bulge  into  moral  tumors.  Tell  me  that 
I  must  do  a  thing  of  which  my  conscience  doubts, 
and  conscience  vaults  over  instantly  into  rebel- 
lion. I  find  a  score  of  reasons  against  that  thing, 
which  I  never  thought  of  before.  A  hundred 
texts  begin  to  bombard  it,  which  were  Quaker 
guns  till  now. 

Such  is  human  nature.  The  Puritans  did  not 
rise  above  manhood.  They  reasoned  and  believed 
and  acted,  probably  about  as  well  as  you  or  I 
should  do  if  the  governor  of  the  Commonwealth 
should  issue  a  proclamation  enjoining  it  upon  our 
clergy,  on  pain  of  imprisonment,  to  invite  and 
urge  us  to  attend  an  exhibition  of  Punch  and 
Judy  on  Boston  Common. 

2.  The  Puritan  theory  of  amusements  was  also, 
by  stress  of  similar  circumstances,  wrought  into 
their  theory  of  the  Lord's  Day. 

The  Puritans  were  Christians  of  the  Hebrew 
type.  Right  or  wrong,  they  held  to  the  Jewish 
ideal  of  the  sabbath.     They  read  it  in  the  word  of 


68  My  Portfolio, 

God;  and  to  read  was  to  believe.  The  spiritual 
and  devotional  spectacle  of  a  Parisian  or  a  Roman 
Sunday  did  not  convince  them.  They  did  not  see 
how  much  more  intelligent  and  pure  and  devout 
such  a  Sunday  would  make  a  Christian  people  ! 

In  those  days  German  beer-gardens  were  not. 
The  Puritans  did  not  hanker  after  Spanish  bull- 
fights. Yet  they  must  do  something  on  Sunday ; 
and  they  had  no  chance  to  see  how  much  more 
refining  and  sanctifying  such  recreations  are  to 
the  character  of  a  people  than  the  services  of 
Christian  churches !  Even  the  Maypole  and  the 
Morris  dance  did  not  satisfy  them  as  means  of 
grace.  So,  for  the  want  of  something  better,  they 
took  to  the  churches. 

Right  or  wrong,  I  repeat,  they  preferred  to  bull- 
fights and  bear-baitings  and  May-games  the  old 
Mosaic  sabbath,  and  the  psalms  and  hymns  which 
had  rung  through  a  thousand  years  of  Christian 
song.  Yet  the  laws  of  the  realm  struck  right 
across  their  conscience  in  this  thing.  Grave  states- 
men and  reverend  bishops  advised,  and  the  king 
decreed,  that  the  odious  "  Book  of  Sports  "  should 
be  announced  to  his  subjects  from  every  pulj)it  in 
the  kingdom  on  Sunday,  and  the  sports  therein 
recorded  should  be  practiced  in  the  afternoon,  after 
the  church  service. 

How  reasonable  would  anybody's  theory  of 
amusements  be  likely  to  be,  if  back  of  it,  and 
inextricably  intertwined  with  it,  there  lay  such  a 
flagrant   outrage    upon   religious  liberty  and  the 


The  Puritan  Theory  of  Amusements,        69 

sense  of  religious  propriety  ?  The  surest  way  to 
set  a  man's  conscience  to  inventing  reasons  against 
a  harmless  thing  is  to  back  it  up  by  tyrannical 
auxiliaries.  Under  such  friction,  conscience  de 
velops  a  sharp  polarity.  Tell  me  that  I  must^  on 
pain  of  the  pillory,  invite  the  Park-street  Church 
of  Boston  to  unite  with  me  in  a  game  of  football 
on  Sunday  afternoon,  at  four  o'clock,  and  exhila- 
rating to  the  religious  emotions  as  that  game  may 
be  for  aught  that  I  know,  the  chances  are  ten  to 
one,  that,  within  a  week,  my  conscience  will  declare 
with  the  solemnity  of  a  revelation  from  heaven, 
that  football  is  a  sin.  That  is  human  nature.  The 
Puritans  were  men. 

HoAV  often  would  the  Rev.  Dr.  Manning  and  the 
Rev.  Phillips  Brooks  read  a  proclamation  from 
the  governor,  inviting  their  congregations,  after 
the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  on  a  Sunday 
afternoon,  to  go  out  and  dance  around  a  pole  on 
Beacon  Hill  ?  Would  not  their  congregations  be 
likely  to  hear  some  "  godly  and  painful  sermons," 
as  the  Puritan  critics  used  to  describe  good  preach- 
ing, on  the  claims  of  the  dance  upon  a  Christian 
people  ?  Would  not  hearers  be  apt  to  follow  up 
the  painstaking  blast  of  the  preacher  by  some- 
thing more  substantial  than  a  sermon  ?  I  would 
not  insure  the  conscience  of  St.  Paul  against 
some  morbid  extremes  of  faith,  if  hawked  at  by 
such  beaks  of  petty  tyranny. 

3.  The  Puritan  theory  of  amusements  was  iden- 
tified with  what  they  believed  to  be  the  Christian 


70  My  Portfolio, 

theory  of  life.  They  never  thought  of  the  thing 
as  apart  by  itself.  Whether  dancing  was  a  sin, 
or  card-playing  was  a  sin,  or  play-going  was  a  sin, 
per  se,  they  cared  not  one  whit.  They  had  little 
to  say  or  do  about  "sins  per  se.  They  were  the 
most  practical  men  that  ever  lived.  They  were 
a  race  of  Benjamin  Franklins.  They  sifted  every 
thing  as  a  matter  of  real  life.  They  did  this  in 
dead  earnest. 

This  question  of  amusements,  therefore,  was  to 
them  a  representative  question,  in  which  was  in- 
volved the  whole  spirit  of  Christian  living.  They 
brought  to  its  discussion  the  whole  force  of  their 
intense  religious  nature.  In  their  very  make  they 
were  intense  men.  They  were  anthracite  on  fire. 
Without  flame  or  crackle  or  smoke,  theirs  was 
solid  heat,  burning  stilly  day  and  night.  Such 
intensity  of  moral  being  they  brought  to  all  ques- 
tions of  practical  life. 

Such  men  felt  no  need  of  amusements.  How 
could  they?  They  were  not  born,  as  some  men 
appear  to  be,  at  hap-hazard,  without  an  aim  in 
living,  and  with  no  power  to  create  one.  Their 
happiness  did  not  depend  on  cat's-cradle  and  push- 
pin. They  did  not  know  the  meaning  of  the  word 
"  ennui.^''  They  came  into  this  world  as  apostles. 
They  came  because  they  were  sent.  The  echo  of 
the  voice  which  created  them  always  sounded  in 
their  ears,  and  heralded  their  steps.  Theirs  was  a 
great  mission.  Their  souls  were  straitened  till  it 
was  accomplished.     When  invited,  urged,  bribed, 


The  Puritan  Theory  of  Amusements,        71 

cajoled,  commanded,  threatened,  browbeaten,  to 
induce  them  to  dance  around  a  Maypole  on  the 
village  green,  they  calmly  said,  "  Wist  ye  not  that 
I  must  be  about  my  Father's  business  ?  " 

That  which  seemed  to  weaker  natures  a  harm- 
less or  needful  recreation  seemed  to  them  frivolity. 
When  charged  with  excessive  precision,  said  one 
of  them  for  answer,  "  I  have  a  precise  God  to  deal 
with."  They  saw  no  record  that  Christ  danced 
around  poles,  or  amused  himself  with  a  jack-of- 
spades,  or  laughed  at  clowns  and  harlequins,  or 
figured  at  masquerade  balls.  As  they  read  liis 
life,  they  saw  him  seeking  relief  from  life's  burdens 
in  the  companionship  of  brothers  and  sisters,  in 
the  homes  of  Bethany,  in  the  society  of  angels, 
in  communion  with  God.  They  saw  that  to  him 
midnight  prayer  took  the  place  of  midnight  revels. 
They  honestly  tried  to  live  as  Christ  lived.  Why 
should  they  not  ? 

Right  or  wrong,  they  believed  this  to  be  the 
true  theory  of  life ;  and,  what  is  more,  they  in 
good  measure  lived  it.  They  enjoyed  it.  As  a 
class,  they  were  the  happiest  of  mortals.  If  ever 
in  this  world  men  enjoyed  life,  they  did,  whenever 
tyranny  would  let  them  alone.  And,  when  it 
would  not,  they  entertained  each  other  with  songs 
in  prisons,  and  broke  out  with  doxologies  at  the 
stake. 

It  may  be  well  enough  to  revise  their  theory  of 
amusements  for  later  times  and  new  generations. 
The  constitutions  of  States  rarely  last  a  century 


72  My  Portfolio. 

without  change :  still  less  should  a  popular  theory 
of  recreations.  We  may  wisely  let  up  somewhat 
of  the  Puritan  pressure  upon  the  modern  con- 
science. We  may  bid  God-speed  to  anybody  who 
thinks  he  can  improve  in  this  respect  the  usages 
of  a  Christian  people.  By  all  means,  let  us  give 
him  a  hearing.  Specially  may  we  extend  the  law 
of  Christian  liberty  in  this  thing.  We  may  trust- 
fully leave  it  to  every  man's  conscience  to  say 
what  recreations,  in  themselves  innocent  (as  almost 
all  recreations  are),  will  be  a  help  to  him  in  godly 
living. 

But,  after  all,  who  can  fail  to  see  that  the  spirit 
of  the  Puritans  on  this  subject  was  the  Christian 
spirit  ?  Who  can  help  seeing  that  improvement, 
if  it  comes,  must  come  from  the  same  spirit? 
Theirs  was  the  spirit  of  a  live  conscience.  It  was 
the  spirit  of  humble  inquiry :  it  sought  wisdom 
from  God.  It  was  the  conservative  spirit  :  it 
leaned  to  the  safe  side  of  moral  questions.  It 
was  the  profound  spirit :  it  sought  happiness  in 
duties,  rather  than  in  rights. 

It  is  very  easy  to  fling  at  the  Puritans  in  this 
matter,  but  it  is  very  weak.  Every  dog  must  have 
his  bay  at  the  moon,  but  healthy  men  sleep 
through  it.  So  disparagement  of  the  Puritans 
does  not  disturb  sound  thinkers.  The  world  has 
outlived  the  wit  of  it.  The  libel  of  the  "  Blue 
Laws "  has  ceased  to  be  amusing.  If  we  could 
stay  long  enough  to  answer  such  disparagement, 
our  answer  would  be  to  point  to  the  men  whom 


The  Puritan  Theory  of  Amusements.        73 

the  Puritan  theories  of  life  created.  Not  till  the 
improved  theories  give  us  better  men  and  better 
women,  can  we  wisely  believe  that  they  are  im- 
provements. Not  till  children  trained  under  such 
improvements  turn  out  to  be  more  Christlike  men 
and  women,  more  prayerful,  more  self-denying, 
more  useful,  happier,  too,  in  the  profound  sense 
of  spiritual  joy,  can  we  safely  admit  that  their 
fathers  are  wiser  than  our  fathers.  For  that  proof 
the  world  must  wait  a  while,  —  must  wait  long 
enough  for  us  to  do  some  things  which  the  world 
is  in  more  pressing  need  of  than  of  an  increase  of 
amusements  and  of  idle  time. 


YIII. 

THE  OHEISTIAN  THEOEY  OF  AMUSEMENTS. 

Certain  incidental  principles  are  essential  to  a 
working  theory. 

1.  It  must  be  a  theory  which  can  be  made  to 
seem  reasonable  to  youthful  inquiry. 

There  is  a  period  of  transition  from  youth  to 
manhood,  in  which  authority  must  take  reason 
into  partnership.  That  is  the  period  at  which  the 
question  of  amusements  is  the  most  practical  and 
yet  most  critical.  Fathers  and  mothers  find  that 
their  parental  authority  is  no  adequate  answer  to 
filial  questionings.  Youth  investigates  de  novo  the 
family  traditions.  The  ethics  of  the  fathers  un- 
dergo revision.  The  query  often  sends  a  Christian 
parent  to  his  closet,  How  shall  the  usage  of  a 
Christian  family  hold  its  own  against  the  usage  of 
the  world  ? 

At  that  period,  the  Christian  use  or  disuse  of 
amusements  must  be  sustained  by  reasons  which 
are  reasons.  They  must  be  obvious  and  conclu- 
sive. So  far  as  they  are  prohibitory,  they  must 
leave  no  open  questions ;  still  less  must  they  be 
involved  in  refinements  of  casuistry. 

74 


The  Christian  Theory  of  Amusements.      75 

To  illustrate  by  a  case  in  point.  Are  not 
Christian  fathers  often  sensible,  in  their  argument 
with  growing  sons,  that  the  traditionary  objections 
to  carcl-playing  are  not  conclusive  ?  Does  not  the 
stereotyped  argument  in  the  negative  seem  weak 
to  ingenuous  minds?  Are  not  the  distinctions 
often  made  between  that  and  other  games  falla- 
cious? I  suspect  that  there  is  not  a  little  of 
secret  practice  of  forbidden  games,  not  because  of 
willful  sin,  but  by  reason  of  unsatisfactory  argu- 
ment against  them.  We  have  not  carried  the 
conscience  of  our  sons  and  daughters  with  us, 
because  we  have  not  carried  their  common  sense. 

This  is  an  evil  under  the  sun.  When  a  time- 
honored  feature  of  Christian  practice  is  thus  non- 
suited in  the  court  of  youthful  investigation,  it 
needs  to  be  reconsidered.  Either  the  argument 
for  it  must  be  re-enforced,  or  its  claims  should 
be  abandoned.  Better  the  surrender  than  the 
enforcement  by  conservative  authority  alone. 

2.  We  must  have  a  theory  of  amusements  which 
requires  no  concealments  in  our  practice. 

If  any  weakness  is  more  fatal  than  another  to  a 
principle  of  morals,  it  is  the  admission  of  secret 
practices  under  it.  Right  has  no  love  for  the 
dark.  Light  is  sown  for  the  righteous.  That  I 
may  indulge  myself  in  amusements  behind  lock 
and  key  which  I  may  not  enjoy  with  open  win- 
dows ;  that  I  may  do  in  a  strange  city  that  which 
I  must  not  do  in  my  home  ;  that  I  may  seek  enter- 
tainments privately  to  which  I  would  not  invite 


76  My  Portfolio, 

my  wife  and  daughter ;  that  I  may  attend  recrea- 
tions in  Naples  which  I  denounce  in  New  York ; 
that  I  may  do  where  I  am  known  only  as  a  lay- 
man what  I  must  not  do  where  I  am  known  as  a 
clergyman ;  or  that  I  may  do  as  a  man  what  I 
must  not  do  as  a  churchman,  —  all  these  things 
are  offenses  to  sound  morals. 

That  any  theory  of  amusements  requires  or 
admits  of  such  secret  licenses  as  these  is  'prima 
facie  evidence  against  it.  Blunt  men  of  the  world 
will  denounce  such  ethics  as  the  ethics  of  a  sneak. 
If  any  thing  will  bear  the  light  in  this  world,  it  is 
Christian  living.  That  needs  no  apologies,  and 
seeks  no  cover.  The  very  meanest  form  of  phari- 
saism  is  that  which  is  ascetic  in  public  and  epi- 
curean in  private.  The  very  worst  use  a  man 
can  make  of  his  conscience  is  to  lay  prohibitory 
restrictions  on  other  men  which  he  declines  to 
accept  himself.  Our  Saviour  gave  a  title  to  such 
men  which  is  akin  to  the  rattlesnake. 

Yet  is  not  Christian  example  on  the  subject  of 
amusements  often  fatally  invalidated  by  inconsis- 
tencies of  this  kind  ?  The  most  senseless  advice 
I  ever  heard  of  was  that  given  by  a  Christian 
father  to  his  son :  "  I  do  not  say  pro  or  con  about 
card-playing,  but  it  must  not  be  practiced  in  my 
house."  It  is  not  surprising  that  that  boy  has 
gone  to  sea. 

A  sermon  has  been  preached  against  the  thea- 
ters of  New  York,  which  the  preacher  could  not 
have  known  enough  to  deliver  if  he  had  not  at- 


The   Chynstian  Theory  of  Amuscinents.      77 

tended  the  theaters  of  London.  The  usefuhiess 
of  such  sermons  was  never  worth  their  cost.  In 
Christian  living  we  must  first,  and  above  all  things 
else,  be  men.  We  must  live  above  ground,  and 
not  burrow. 

3.  We  must  have  a  theory  which  admits  of  no 
suspense  of  conscience  in  practice ;  that  is  to 
say,  positive  decisions  of  conscience  must  cover 
the  whole  ground  of  our  practice.  It  is  a  fatal 
weakness  in  any  theory  of  morals,  if  it  leaves  con- 
duct to  swing  loose  in  some  things  for  the  want 
of  an  opinion.  To  be  obliged  to  say,  "  I  do  not 
know,"  when  my  conduct  is  all  the  while  assum- 
ing that  I  ought  to  know,  is  a  fraud  upon  princi- 
ple as  well  as  upon  example.  No  man's  example 
can  have  authority,  because  no  man's  principle 
deserves  it,  if  it  is  thus  cramped  in  its  range  by 
suspense  of  conscience. 

Yet  is  not  this  the  weak  point  in  the  practice  of 
some  Christians  respecting  amusements  ?  We  do 
not  mean  to  be  disloyal  to  conscience ;  but  certain 
indulgences  we  do  not  bring  into  the  court  of 
conscience,  or,  if  we  do,  we  have  never  pressed 
for  a  verdict.  We  therefore  do  things  on  which 
we  have  no  theory  of  right  and  wrong.  It  is  much 
easier  to  obey  a  public  opinion  than  it  is  to  create 
one.  This  we  do,  when  we  accept  worldly  usage 
as  our  law  with  a  silent  conscience.  The  rudder 
swings  loose,  and  the  ship  drifts. 

Such  was  not  the  way  of  Christ.  When  did  he 
ever  act  with  a  speechless  conscience  ?     What  one 


78  My  Portfolio. 

thing  did  he  ever  do  on  which  he  had  no  opinion, 
and  could  giye  no  reason?  When  did  he  ever 
permit  the  world's  usage  to  become  a  law  to  him, 
for  the  want  of  a  conscience  quick  and  positive  ? 
"  The  world  was  not  his  friend,  nor  the  world's 
law."  Neither  are  they  ours.  He  never  yielded 
to  it  a  matter  of  conscience  by  default.  Why 
should  we  ? 

4.  We  must  have  a  theor}^  which,  in  its  practi- 
cal working,  will  not  alienate  from  us  the  sympa- 
thies of  the  great  majority  of  God's  people. 

The  Christian  Church  being  what  it  is,  no  man, 
on  any  question  of  practical  morals,  can  afford 
to  stand  alone.  This  is  specially  true  respecting 
things  of  secondary  importance,  like  the  amuse- 
ments of  a  people.  No  man  can  for  such  a  cause 
isolate  himself  from  the  great  body  of  spiritual 
Christians,  without  loss.  If  we  achieve  all  that 
we  claim,  we  get  but  a  minor  good :  if  we  sacrifice 
to  it  our  affiliation  with  God's  people,  or  theirs 
with  us,  we  suffer  an  immeasurable  evil. 

Oblivion  of  this  truth  is  apparent,  often,  in  the 
spirit  in  which  the  Christian  law  of  amusements 
is  discussed.  It  is  debated  too  warmly  as  a  ques- 
tion of  individual  liberty.  But  as  such  is  it  worth 
debating?  Liberty  in  such  matters  is  not  worth 
its  cost,  if  we  gain  it  at  the  expense  of  Christian 
fellowship. 

There  is  more  than  loss  of  influence  in  such 
isolation :  there  is  loss  of  certain  fine  elements  of 
character  which  no  man  or  woman  should  be  will- 


The   Christian  Theory  of  Amusements,      79 

ing  to  part  with.  There  is  loss  of  a  wise  Chris- 
tian modesty.  It  is  possible,  but  not  probable, 
that  the  individual  is  right  in  his  dissent  from  the 
instinct  of  the  Christian  Church.  He  7nay  be  in- 
spired above  his  peers,  but  such  is  not  the  usual 
method  of  divine  revelations.  His  self-conceit 
feeds  upon  his  modesty,  if  he  believes  himself  thus 
exalted. 

There  is  a  loss  of  fraternal  affection  also.  It  is 
a  selfish  thing  in  me  to  stand  up  against  the  cur- 
rent of  Christian  feeling  for  ray  right  to  attend  a 
theater  or  a  masquerade.  My  combative  nature 
ought  not  to  be  roused  against  good  men  and 
praying  women  for  a  mask  and  a  farce.  They  can 
afford  it ;  but  can  I?  Sooner  or  later  I  must  come 
to  myself,  and  grieve  over  my  irreparable  loss. 

Is  there  not  food  for  reflection  in  this  view, 
which  a  certain  class  of  Christians  need  for  their 
own  healthy  digestion  of  the  Christian  law  of 
recreations  ? 


IX. 

IS  OARD-PLATING  A  OHEISTIAN  AMUSEMENT? 

Is  it  right  ?  Is  it  expedient  ?  Something  must 
in  fairness  be  conceded  to  the  affirmative.  It 
must  be  admitted,  so  far  as  Puritan  authority 
bears  upon  the  question,  that  the  Puritan  casuis- 
try was  infected  with  Judaism,  to  the  detriment  of 
Christian  liberty,  in  making  religion  consist  so 
largely  as  it  did  in  obedience  to  prohibitions.  Our 
Puritan  fathers  were  not  emancipated  to  the  ex- 
tent of  apostolic  liberty  from  the  judaizing  spirit. 
That  a  change  is  in  progress  in  Christian  senti- 
ment on  the  subject  can  not  be  denied. 

The  advocates  of  Christian  card-playing  are  cor- 
rect, also,  in  claiming  that  the  distinction  which 
it  has  been  common  to  make  between  games  with 
cards  and  other  games  of  chance  is  fallacious. 
Any  father  who  has  attempted  to  argue  with  a 
quick-witted  son  in  college  on  that  theory  must 
have  felt  misgivings,  to  say  the  least,  as  to  the 
soundness  of  his  reasoning.  For  one,  I  must  give 
it  up.  The  principle  that  it  is  a  sin  to  make  a 
frivolous  appeal  to  Providence  by  the  throw  of 
dice  is  a  fair  subject  of  debate.     But,  if  claimed 

80 


Is   Card-Playi7ig  a   Christian  Amusement?     81 

in  one  game,  it  must  be  conceded  in  all.  On  that 
principle,  to  toss  up  a  penny  is  a  sin. 

The  argument  from  association  fares  scarcely 
better  against  the  modern  card-playing  for  amuse- 
ment. "  Cards  are  the  instruments  of  the  gam- 
bling-hell. Touch  not  a  thing  so  saturated  with 
the  fumes  of  the  pit."  The  Puritans  made  much 
of  this.  In  later  times  it  has  not  been  easy  to 
answer  it  with  a  Christian  conscience.  It  was 
one  of  the  singular  anomalies  in  casuistry,  that 
the  very  same  public  opinion  which  authorized 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Nott,  sixty  years  ago,  to  obtain  a 
half-million  of  dollars  for  Union  College  by  a  lot- 
tery, upheld  laws  forbidding  card-playing. 

But  now  we  are  told  by  those  who  are  learned 
in  the  devices  of  Satan,  that  cards  have  ceased  to 
occupy  that  guilty  pre-eminence ;  that  whist  es- 
pecially is  rarely  used  by  gamesters ;  that  their 
vice  has  monopolized  the  roulette-table,  the  game 
of  billiards,  and  even  the  old-fashioned  children's 
game  of  dominos,  which  in  our  childhood  we 
were  taught  to  consider  as  innocent  as  cherry- 
stones. The  argument  from  ungodly  association, 
therefore,  if  pleaded,  must  expel  dominos  from 
our  nurseries,  rather  than  cards  from  our  parlors. 

It  must,  in  fairness,  be  conceded,  also,  that 
games  of  chance,  cards  included,  may  be  inno- 
cently used  as  a  sanitary/  expedient.  In  asylums 
for  the  insane  they  are  relied  upon  as  among 
the  staple  means  of  occupjdng  lightly  a  diseased 
brain.     One  excellent  officer  of  a  church  within 


82  My  Portfolio, 

my  knowledge  died  insane,  whose  reason  and  life 
might,  in  the  judgment  of  his  physicians,  perhaps 
have  been  saved,  if  his  conscience  had  permitted 
him  to  while  away  the  weary  hours  of  convales- 
cence with  whist  and  backgammon. 

The  philosophy  of  the  sanitary  effect  of  games 
of  chance  is  not  obscure.  The  disease  of  a  con- 
gested brain  is  a  deluge  of  thinking.  Serious 
thinking  is  logic.  Its  continuity  is  its  bane.  It 
is  a  chain  of  iron.  The  sleepless  spirit  falls  under 
a  bondag^e  to  it  more  bitter  than  fetters  to  hand 
or  foot.  The  train  of  thought,  as  we  call  it,  be- 
comes to  the  burning  brain  worse  than  the  folds 
of  the  serpents  to  the  limbs  of  Laocoon.  Power 
of  will  can  not  break  it.  Sleep  becomes  impossible. 
The  victim  is  in  the  condition  of  the  Chinese 
criminal,  doomed  to  the  torture  of  enforced  in- 
somnia by  the  beating  of  a  bell  thrown  over  his 
head,  till  raving  mania  ends  the  scene.  Any 
thing  gives  hope  which  can  break  up  logical  con- 
tinuity of  brain- work.  This  the  game  of  chance 
will  often  do ;  and,  the  more  abundant  the  element 
of  chance,  the  better.  The  fortuitous  complica- 
tions of  whist  reduce  hT^in-work  to  brain-pZ«y/ ; 
and  that  is  just  what  the  raging  nervous  centers 
crave.  Hence  the  universal  use  of  chance-games 
in  insane-asylums. 

Why  may  they  not  be  as  useful  in  some  Chris- 
tian homes  ?  Two  Christian  friends  once  met  at 
a  sanitarium.  Both  were  suffering  from  over- 
worked brains.      Both  were  threatened  with  in- 


Is  Card-Playing  a  Christian  Amusement?     83 

sanity.  One  of  tliem  has  since  died  of  the  disease 
which  then  oppressed  him.  Both  had  been 
directed  by  their  physicians  to  relieve  the  tedium 
of  their  useless  hours  by  whist.  They  debated 
the  matter  as  friends  of  Christ,  and  members  of 
Christ's  church.  Deliberately  and  prayerfully 
they  revived  the  little  they  had  known  of  the 
game  in  their  youth,  and  spent  many  evenings  in 
that  amusement.  They  did  it  without  a  ripple  of 
condemning  conscience.  They  used  to  go  from 
the  weekly  prayer-meeting  under  the  same  roof, 
to  the  private  room  of  one  or  the  other,  and  played 
whist  an  hour  or  two  before  retiring  for  the  night. 
It  was  their  most  effective  and  harmless  soporific. 
Was  whist,  under  those  conditions,  a  sin  ? 

The  apology  for  card-playing  is  fairly  entitled 
to  whatever  of  support  it  may  derive  from  these 
concessions,  and  some  others  of  less  moment. 
Two  other  considerations,  however,  it  seems  to 
me,  should,  except  in  cases  of  mental  disease  or 
its  premonitions,  decide  Christian  practice  in  the 
negative. 

One  of  these  is  the  deference  which  is  due 
to  the  Christian  judgment  of  a  very  large  and  emi- 
nently spiritual  portion  of  the  Christian  Church. 
It  is  a  serious  thing  to  dissent  from  the  church  of 
Christ  upon  any  matter  of  importance  affecting 
public  morals.  No  reverent  and  thoughtful  Chris- 
tian will  do  it  heedlessly  or  defiantly.  There  is  a 
religious  JBohcmianism  which  prides  itself  on  its 
flings  of  dissent  at  the  "  bigotry  "  and  the  ''  nar- 


84  My  Portfolio, 

rowness"  of  the  Church,  which  is  not  worthy 
either  of  a  Christian,  or  a  man.  It  is  below  the 
respect  of  either.  Even  if  the  abstract  liberty  be 
with  the  individual,  the  law  of  Christian  fellow- 
ship demands  the  waiving  of  an  individual  right 
in  things  non-essential,  as  all  mere  amusements 
are,  if  the  overwhelming  voice  of  the  Christian 
body  be  against  it. 

How,  then,  stands  the  judgment  of  the  Church 
upon  the  question  in  hand  ?  In  the  Catholic  and 
Episcopal,  and  perhaps  Lutheran  churches,  the 
innocence  of  this  amusement  is  not  often  ques- 
tioned. In  considerable  fragments  of  the  Presby- 
terian, the  Reformed,  and  the  Congregational 
churches,  the  practice  of  it  has  of  late  years  been 
gaining  ground. 

But,  with  these  exceptions,  it  must  be  said  that 
the  voice  of  the  great  bulk  of  Evangelical  churches 
is  at  present  in  the  negative.  In  the  rural 
churches  especially,  the  sentiment  of  the  olden 
time  remains  intact.  A  bishop  of  the  Methodist 
Church  has  recently  testified  that  that  branch  of 
the  Church  is  almost  a  unit  against  card-playing. 
Probably  the  same  is  true,  outside  of  cities  cer- 
tainly, of  the  Baptist  Church.  A  large  majority 
of  the  Presbyterian,  the  Reformed,  and  the  Con- 
gregational churches,  also,  hold  fast  the  traditions 
of  the  fathers. 

This  makes  up  a  volume  of  weighty  testimony. 
The  fact  is  notewo-rthy,  that  it  is  emphasized  in 
times   of  religious   revival.      Right   or  wrong  in 


Is  Card-Playing  a  Christian  Amusement?     85 

theory,  it  deserves  deference  in  practice.  Any 
man  will  respect  it  who  retains  enough  of  Chris- 
tian dignity  to  respect  any  thing  which  outweighs 
his  own  opinion.  True,  the  degree  of  deserved 
deference  to  the  Christian  judgment  of  others  is 
a  variable  quantity.  When  a  single,  and  we  must 
think  an  idle,  Methodist  conference  in  Ohio  pro- 
nounces by  solemn  vote  against  the  rural  game  of 
croquet,  intelligent  Christian  opinion  everywhere 
else  reasonably  demurs.  Such  a  vote  is  provincial. 
It  carries  with  it  none  of  the  authority  of  the 
Church  Universal. 

When  the  revered  Dr.  Finney  of  Oberlin  sol- 
emnly and  publicly  reproves  the  mirth  of  the  hard- 
worked  clergy  of  the  Congregational  Church, 
assembled  for  an  hour's  recreation  at  a  banquet  in 
Brooklyn,  we  reasonably  withstand  our  reverend 
father  to  his  face  :  "  No,  sir :  in  this  thing  you  are 
ascetic  and  monastic.  '  The  Son  of  man  came  eat- 
ing and  drinking,  and  ye  say  he  hath  a  devil.' " 

When  a  bowling-alley  was  first  appended  to  the 
gymnasium  of  the  Andover  Seminary,  I  received  a 
long  and  very  solemn  letter  of  remonstrance  from 
an  excellent  Christian  woman.  She  probably  died 
in  the  belief  that  the  Spirit  of  God  departed  from 
Andover  at  the  advent  of  that  snare  of  Satan. 
The  reverend  and  honorable  Board  of  Trustees  did 
not  revoke  their  action  at  such  a  call.  What 
would  my  friend  have  said  to  the  profligacy  of 
the  trustees  of  Princeton  College  in  introducing 
a  billiard-table  ? 


86  My  Portfolio, 

These  cases  are  clear.  But  the  case  is  very 
different  with  the  judgment  of  an  overwhehning 
majority  of  the  Evangelical  Church  on  a  subject 
on  which,  till  recent  years,  the  Evangelical  body 
was  almost  unanimous  in  the  same  direction. 
Such  a  witness  is  worthy  of  respect.  Such  a 
body  of  believers  have  a  right  to  ask  that  we 
should  not  so  practice  our  individual  liberty  as  to 
wound  their  feelings  by  doing  that  which  is  only 
an  amusement  to  us,  but  which  to  them  seems  an 
infliction  of  a  wound  upon  the  Lord  himself.  A 
believer  who  has  a  tender  sense  of  Christian  fel- 
lowship, it  should  seem,  would  not  do  that  thing. 
Nevertheless,  to  the  Master  he  standeth  or  falleth, 
not  to  you  or  me. 

The  other  consideration  is  that  of  the  danger  of 
the  example  to  those  to  whose  consciences  games 
of  chance  are  not  matters  of  indifference.  Many 
such  there  are,  the  children  of  Christian  families, 
who  have  been  trained  in  the  earlier  schoo^  of 
casuistry  on  the  subject.  In  their  present  state  of 
religious  culture  they  can  not  play  a  game  of  cards 
innocently.  Multitudes  there  are,  also,  of  the 
world  outside,  whose  inherited  conscience  on  the 
subject  condemns  this  amusement,  even  though 
they  practice  it.  To  them  it  is  a  symbol  of  un- 
godliness and  a  badge  of  Satan.  They  feel  it  to 
be  unworthy  of  one  making  profession  of  Christ. 
It  is  one  of  the  snares  of  the  world,  which,  if 
they  should  become  Christians,  they  would  feel 
bound  in  conscience  to  put  away.     They  may  join 


Is  Card-Playing  a  Christian  Amusement^     87 

a  Cliristian  card-player  to  liis  face,  and  berate  him 
roundly  as  a  hj^pocrite  behind  bis  back.  From  no 
tribunal  do  professing  Christians  receive  severer 
judgment  than  from  those  with  whom  they  unite 
in  pleasures  which  the  conscience  of  the  world 
condemns. 

Here  applies  St.  Paul's  principle  respecting  the 
meats  ojffered  to  idols :  "  Take  heed,  lest  this 
liberty  of  yours  become  a  stumbling-block.  If 
any  see  thee,  shall  not  the  conscience  of  him  be 
emboldened?  Through  thy  knowledge  shall  the 
weak  brother  perish  for  whom  Christ  died?  If 
meat  make  my  brother  to  offend,  I  will  eat  no 
meat  while  the  world  standeth." 

Is  not  this  good  sense,  as  well  as  sound  Chris- 
tianity ?  And  is  it  not  pat  to  the  purpose  ?  Free 
as  we  may  feel  in  individual  conscience,  and  much 
as  we  may  desire  that  all  should  come  into  our 
Christian  liberty  in  this  thing,  yet  is  it  worth  to 
us  the  sacrifice  of  one  iota  of  Christian  fellowship  ? 
Still  more,  is  it  worth  to  us  the  imperiling  of  an 
unsaved  brother's  soul  ?  Abstinence  seems  in  this 
thing,  as  in  reference  to  the  drinking  customs  of 
society,  to  be  the  true  law  of  Christian  fraternity 
and  of  common  philanthropy. 


X. 

THE  QUESTION  OF  SUNDAY  OAES. 

Rey.  Dk.  Humphrey,  when  president  of  Am- 
herst College,  used  to  preach  frequently  in  the 
adjoining  towns.  To  do  this,  he  often  crossed  the 
Connecticut  River  on  Sunday  morning  in  a  ferry- 
boat, and  returned  by  the  same  conveyance  in  the 
evening.  In  accordance  with  the  pious  usage  of 
those  times,  he  endeavored  to  "  improve  his  oppor- 
tunities," in  imitation  of  Him  who  sat  and  talked 
by  the  well  of  Samaria.  He  unexpectedly  met 
his  match  one  morning  in  the  quick-witted  ferry- 
man. "  Oh,  yes ! "  said  the  latter,  "  I  want  to 
save  my  soul.  I  believe  all  you  say;  but  the 
fact  is,  I  have  no  time  for  such  things.  On  week- 
days I  have  to  work  my  farm  while  the  boy  works 
the  ferry,  till,  when  the  nights  come,  I  am  too 
sleepy  to  know  whether  I  have  a  soul.  Then, 
when  Sunday  comes,  I  have  to  be  here  to  carry 
you  parsons  across  the  river.  I  haven't  had  a 
passenger  this  morning,  except  parsons."  So,  in 
substance,  the  story  ran,  as  Dr.  Humphrey  related 
it  to  a  friend.  He  went  home  and  revised  his 
observance  of  the  Lord's  Day,  and  the  ferryman 
lost  a  Sunday  customer. 


The  Question  of  Sunday  Cars.  89 

We  pass  on  about  thirty  years,  and  a  tall,  grave 
man,  over  sixty  years  of  age,  whose  look  reminds 
one  of  "  that  disciple  Avhom  Jesus  loved,"  is  seen 
walking  from  the  west  bank  of  the  River  Schuyl- 
kill at  Philadelphia,  on  a  Sunday  morning,  and 
after  preaching  twice,  and  presiding  at  a  third  ser- 
vice in  the  evening,  walking  back  to  his  country- 
home,  while  horse-cars,  a  score  or  more,  are  pass- 
ing him  back  and  forth.  The  distance  is  over 
three  miles  each  way.  It  is  the  Rev.  Albert 
Barnes,  who  thus  endeavors  to  honor  his  faith  in 
the  Christian  sabbath,  which  he  devoutly  believes 
to  be  violated  by  the  running  of  the  street-cars  on 
that  day.  He  has  lately  led  his  brethren  and  the 
good  people  of  Philadelphia  in  a  protest  against 
the  innovation,  and  his  Sunday  walks  are  his  indi- 
vidual tribute  to  the  same  end. 

We  pass  on  fifteen  years  more.  The  scene  is 
shifted,  we  will  suppose,  to  an  academic  town  not 
a  thousand  miles  from  either  the  Connecticut  or 
the  Schuylkill  River.  The  steam-cars  run  to  and 
from  the  neighboring  metropolis,  not  as  fre- 
quently, but  as  regularly,  on  the  Lord's  Day  as 
on  any  other.  Conductors,  brakemen,  engineers, 
oilmen,  and  other  adjuncts  of  a  railway  train,  — 
and  we  are  told  that  a  well-manned  train  requires 
the  service,  on  the  average,  of  about  twenty  men, 
—  are  employed  as  on  a  week-day.  They  know 
no  difference  between  secular  and  holy  time.  Life 
to  them  is  one  long  treadmill  of  secularities.  If 
they  should  chance  to  be  moved,  by  a  tract  given 


90  My  Portfolio. 

to  tliem  by  a  Sunday  traveler,  to  petition  that 
their  right  to  the  Lord's  Day  and  its  refreshing 
liberties  should  be  restored  to  them,  they  would 
probably  be  told  that  railway  trains  can  not  run 
on  scruples ;  that  they  require  a  steel  conscience 
as  well  as  steel  rails ;  and  that,  if  the  petitioners 
do  not  think  so,  their  services  are  no  longer 
wanted.  A  hundred  hungry  men  to  each  one 
of  them  stand  ready  to  take  their  places.  Wife 
and  children  at  home  must  have  bread ;  and,  if  the 
petitioners  try  to  reason  the  matter  with  their 
superiors,  they  probably  end  with  pocketing  their 
wages  —  and  their  scruples.  The  train  runs  as 
before,  and  twenty  men  have  no  sabbath ;  and  the 
consciences  of  twenty  men  are  indurated,  it  may 
be,  for  a  lifetime. 

On  the  line  of  that  railroad  some  two  or  three 
hundred  preachers,  more  or  less,  live ;  and  many 
of  them,  not  a  large  minority  perhaps,  but  an 
increasing  one,  use  the  cars  as  freely  on  Sunday 
as  on  Monday.  Anomalies  easily  grow  to  usages 
in  such  things.  Distance  appears  to  have  little 
concern  with  the  license  which  these  itinerant 
ministers  take  with  sacred  time.  They  ride  any 
distance  which  can  be  traveled  in  season  for  the 
morning  service,  and  nobody  audibly  questions 
it.  Nevertheless,  it  is  questioned.  The  traveling 
ministers  on  the  Lord's  Day  are  surrounded  by  a 
great  cloud  of  witnesses  in  more  worlds  than  one. 
Approving  angels,  we  trust,  hear  their  faithful 
sermons   and    devout  intercessions,  —  approving, 


The  Question  of  Sunday  Cars,  91 

that  is,  the  sermon  and  the  prayer ;  but  three  or 
four  hundred  young  students  in  the  academic  town 
listen  also,  thinking,  the  while,  not  so  much  of 
prayer  and  sermon  as  of  that  which  went  before. 
They  ask  each  other,  and  ask  their  instructors, 
"  Is  it  right  for  these  ministers  to  go  and  come  in 
the  Sunday  trains?  If  right  for  them,  why  not 
for  us?"  Next  Sunday  they  ask  leave  to  go  to 
Boston  to  attend  a  "  sacred  concert "  on  the  Com- 
mon, —  one  of  the  improvements  of  these  latter 
days  for  the  spiritual  culture  of  that  goodly  city 
and  its  suburbs.  And  when  they  receive  a  nega- 
tive, and  are  required  to  attend  church  and  hear 
the  ministers  instead,  they  do  not  quite  see  the 
reasons  of  things.     Is  anybody  else  wiser  ? 

Dr.  Humphrey,  Mr.  Barnes,  and  these  later  itin- 
erant divines,  have  all,  doubtless,  agreed  in  one 
thing.  They  have  all  lauded  with  unmeasured 
respect  that  act  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth  in 
1620,  in  which  they  bore  witness  to  their  rever- 
ence for  the  Christian  sabbath  by  remaining,  with 
their  sick  ones  and  little  children,  another  day  in  \ 
the  cabins  of  their  leaky  ship,  after  a  tedious  and 
unhealthy  passage,  that  they  might  not  use  unwor- 
thily the  Lord's  time. 

Which  of  these  reverend,  and,  we  would  will- 
ingly believe,  equally  conscientious  men,  have  been 
right  about  this  thing?  If  the  query  admits  of 
doubt,  which  have  chosen  the  safer  side  ?  Have 
the  Pilgrims  probably  discovered,  in  a  more  tonic 
atmosphere  than  that  of  Plymouth  Bay,  that  they 


92  My  Portfolio. 

bore  ascetic  penance  in  "The  Mayflower"  and 
"  The  Speedwell "  for  a  sickly  scruple  ?  In  the 
deed  which  we  recall  so  reverently  on  Forefathers' 
Day,  was  their  tribute  to  history  to  the  end  of 
time,  only  a  freak  of  superstition, — the  thing, 
which,  above  all  others,  they  abhorred  ?  Did  Dr. 
Humj)hrey  and  Mr.  Barnes,  in  their  modest  imita- 
tion of  the  fathers,  expose  to  the  world's  contempt 
the  fussiness  of  a  pettifogging  conscience  ?  Ought 
we  to  place  all  these  reverend  men,  in  our  esti- 
mate of  character,  by  the  side  of  George  Fox, 
in  his  praying  over  the  cut  of  his  Quaker  coat 
and  the  width  of  the  rim  of  his  Quaker  hat  ?  If 
so,  it  is  time  that  we  all  see  it  thus,  and  see  the 
reason  why.  Such  feeble  brethren  as  Dr.  Hum- 
phrey and  Mr.  Barnes  let  us  shield  in  compassion- 
ate silence.  On  Forefathers'  Day  let  us  frankly 
place  the  scrupulous  delay  of  the  landing  at 
Plymouth  alongside  of  Tower  Hill  in  Salem.  Let 
us  teach  our  children  that  both  represent  obsolete 
blunders  of  a  conscience  not  illumined  by  the 
dawn  of  these  better  days.  Then,  for  ourselves, 
let  us  endeavor  to  mount  the  spiritual  heights  of 
the  "  sacred  concerts "  on  Boston  Common,  in 
which  the  Metropolitan  Band  shall  lead  our  de- 
votions in  (we  quote  from  the  advertisements) 
the  "concert-waltzes  of  Strauss,"  and  "La  Som- 
nambula  of  Cavallini." 

An  eminent  Boston  merchant,  a  man  not  given 
to  narrow  Sabbatarianism,  puts  this  whole  ques- 
tion of  the  observance  of  the  Lord's  Day  in  a 


The  Question  of  Sunday  Cars.  93 

nutshell,  in  words  which  suburban  ministers  may 
wisely  take  in  admonition  to  themselves.  He 
says,  in  a  letter  which  lies  before  me,  "  The  wedge 
once  entered,  there  is  no  resisting  its  progress. 
We  bid  fair  to  have  a  Parisian  sabbath  here  before 
long,  unless  Christian  people  are  willing  to  deny 
themselves^  and  do  nothing  which  may  give  their 
neighbor  an  excuse  for  taking  another  step."  The 
suburbans  of  a  large  city  are,  to  a  great  extent, 
responsible  for  its  moral  decline.  They  help  to 
fill  its  theaters;  they  patronize  its  "sacred  con- 
certs," which  are  a  burlesque  on  the  name;  they 
fill  large  spaces  in  its  Sunday  trains.  Cut  off  the 
suburban  patronage,  and  could  one  of  these  sources 
of  detriment  to  public  morals  be  supported? 
Doubtful. 


XI. 

WOMAN-SUFPEAGE  AS  JUDGED  BY  THE  WOEKING 
OP  NEGEO-SUPPEAGE 

A  FALSE  principle  wrought  into  real  life  always 
works  itself  out  in  disaster.  Nemesis  watches  it. 
Its  malign  nature  will  out  relentlessly.  Its  work- 
ing is  like  that  of  demoniacal  possession :  the  dis- 
possession comes  with  outcry  and  convulsions. 

Such  is  the  naked  fact  in  the  issue  of  our  ex- 
periment in  giving  the  ballot  to  the  negro  of  the 
plantation.  We  put  the  most  delicate  blossom  of 
civilization  into  the  hands  of  a  herd  of  ignorance 
and  brutishness.  We  uplifted  men  to  the  ulti- 
mate height  of  republican  freedom,  whose  donkeys 
knew  nearly  as  much  of  its  responsibilities  as  they 
did.  We  drew  from  the  rice-fields  to  the  polls 
men  who  in  some  instances  deposited  there  circus- 
bills,  hotel  dinner-bills,  and  copies  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  We  threw  open  halls  of  legislation  which 
the  finished  culture  of  the  land  had  graced,  to 
men  who  not  onl}^  could  neither  read  nor  write, 
but  whose  guffaws  in  derision  of  parliamentary 
order,  as  they  sat  with  feet  higher  than  their 
heads,  betrayed  scarcely  more  of  intelligence  than 

94 


Woman-Suffrage  judged  hy  Negro-Suffrage.       95 

the  bray  of  an  ass.  The  Rhetts  and  Legares,  and 
Hamptons  and  Calhouns  of  a  great  State,  have 
been  succeeded  m  part  by  Sambo  and  Pompey, 
and  Csesar  and  Jerusalem. 

The  issue,  to  the  most  sanguine  believers  in  the 
necessity  of  the  experiment,  must  seem  to  be  a 
dead  failure.  Not  only  has  it  breeded  bad  legis- 
lation, and  repudiated  debts,  but  the  fundamental 
law  of  representative  government  —  that  by  which 
majorities  rule  —  has  been  abrogated  by  force. 
The  process  has  been  so  revolutionary,  that  we 
have  had  to  coin  a  new  word  to  express  it.  "Bull- 
doze "  will  live  long  in  our  language  in  token  of 
the  wretched  business. 

Political  partisans  may  gloss  it  over  as  they 
please  ;  yet  few  non-partisans  in  the  land  doubt 
that  minorities  rule  to-day  in  South  Carolina  and 
Louisiana,  and  probably  in  three  other  Southern 
States.  Govs.  Chamberlain  and  Packard  are  de 
jure  chief  magistrates  of  their  respective  Com- 
monwealths. They  have  the  sympathy  of  thou- 
sands who  feel  compelled,  by  a  necessity  which 
knows  not  law,  to  support  the  policy  which  dis- 
owns them.  Their  rivals  govern  only  by  the 
right  of  a  usurpation,  which,  in  theory,  has  sup- 
planted republican  government  by  a  tj^ranny. 
The  same  revolution  extended  through  the  coun- 
try would  make  every  State  government  a  despot- 
ism, and  the  form  of  representative  rule  a  farce. 

Yet  we  yield  to  it  as  a  necessity.  A  necessity 
which  is  above  law  is  the  issue  of  the  first  false 


96  My  Portfolio. 

move  which  gave  the  franchise  to  men  who  were 
neither  fitted  for  it,  nor  able  even  to  understand 
it.  Through  no  fault  of  theirs  —  poor  souls  !  — 
they  were  lifted  to  an  eminence  which  they  had 
never  known  enough  even  to  ask  for.  The  sym- 
pathies of  the  best  minds  of  the  nation  must  be 
with  them,  rather  than  with  their  lordly  superi- 
ors. They  have  done  as  well,  in  their  unnatural 
elevation,  as  anybody  could  have  been  expected 
to  do,  if  suddenly  and  volcanically  tossed  into 
responsibilities  so  vastly  above  their  education 
and  their  history. 

But  it  is  no  kindness  to  them  to  suffer  our  com- 
passion to  blind  us  to  the  facts  of  their  condition, 
which  both  they  and  we  must  now  face  together. 
The  facts  of  the  situation  have  driven  our  theo- 
ries out  of  sight.  We  can  not  help  seeing  that 
there  are  things  in  the  administration  of  States 
which  are  more  potent  than  numbers.  We  have 
to  coynt  other  things  than  heads,  white  or  black. 
We  must  confess  that  intelligence,  culture,  knowl- 
edge of  the  art  of  government,  the  habit  of  rule, 
pride  of  ancestry  and  historic  prestige,  have  more 
real  power  in  ruling  a  great  State  than  the  brute 
force  of  hands.  The  "bayonets"  which  "think" 
beat  back  thrice  the  number  of  those  which  do 
not  think.  Upset  society  to-day  by  plunging  these 
thinking  forces  underneath,  and  heaving  ignorance 
and  inherited  debasement,  and  the  traditions  of 
slavery,  to  the  top,  and  the  first  thing  we  learn  is 
that  society  will  not  stay  thus   upset.     It  inevi- 


Woman-Suffrage  judged  by  Negro-Suffrage,       97 

tably  turns  over  again  into  its  natural  condition, 
stands  on  its  natural  feet,  and  erects  again  its 
natural  head,  let  the  majority  of  the  bits  of  paper, 
in  or  out  of  the  ballot-box,  count  for  whom  they 
may.  The  head  comes  uppermost,  let  the  hands 
do  what  they  will. 

Color  and  hair,  and  nose  and  lips,  have  nothing 
to  do  with  such  a  revolution  and  counter-revolu- 
tion. Any  race  in  South  Carolina,  fresh  from  the 
auction-block  and  the  lash  of  the  rice-field,  could 
no  more  govern  an  intelligent  and  cultured  mi- 
nority, heirs  to  the  history  of  South  Carolina,  than 
a  herd  of  buffaloes  could  govern  Minnesota.  To 
this  fact  of  political  science  our  whole  theory  of 
government  by  majorities  has  been  forced  to  suc- 
cumb in  a  day.  Think  what  we  may  of  it,  the 
fact  is  there,  and  our  theory  is  nowhere.  Such 
is  the  exorcism  of  the  body  politic,  by  which  it 
rids  itself  of  a  tampering  with  the  franchise  which 
was  against  nature.  The  hopeless  despotism  under 
which  New  York  is  drifting  towards  bankruptcy 
is  only  another  fruit  of  the  same  reckless  exten- 
sion of  suffrage  at  the  North.  Such  silent  revolu- 
tions are  mightiest  issues  of  apparently  smallest 
forces.  They  resemble  that  in  which  an  ounce  of 
water  in  midwinter  may  rend  asunder  a  ton's 
weight  of  granite  in  a  night. 

Where,  now,  is  the  parallel  between  negro-suf- 
frage at  the  South  and  the  proposed  suffrage  of 
woman?  In  respect  to  intelligence  and  culture, 
and  their  prerogatives,  it  does  not   exist  at  all. 


98  My  Portfolio. 

Whether  it  exists  in  respect  to  the  instinct  and 
capacity  of  government,  may  be  an  open  question. 
But  the  parallel  is  clear  in  this,  which  is  the  ulti- 
mate fact  in  both  cases,  that  the  ballot  is  given, 
or  supposed  to  be  given,  not  to  exceptional  classes, 
few  in  number,  but  to  the  half  of  the  population 
which  has  no  physical  power  to  defend  it.  They 
can  neither  take  it  by  force,  nor  hold  it  if  assailed 
by  force. 

"  Who  would  be  free,  themselves  must  strike  the  blow.'* 

A  principle  of  political  destiny  is  expressed  in 
these  words,  than  which  gravitation  is  not  more 
sure.  Liberty,  such  as  is  involved  in  the  gift  of 
suffrage,  is  impossible,  on  any  large  scale,  to  a 
race,  or  nation,  or  tribe,  or  class,  which  has  not 
power  to  take  the  right,  if  it  is  a  right,  and  to 
hold  it  against  all  aggressors.  This  is  the  secret, 
back  of  all  other  causes,  of  the  failure  of  negro- 
suifrage  at  the  South.  Excess  of  numbers  by  a 
few  thousands  or  tens  of  thousands  is  of  no  ac- 
count, where  the  cultured  brain,  the  heirloom  of 
centuries,  is  all  on  the  side  of  the  minority.  The 
negro  majority,  in  receiving  the  ballot,  received 
an  elephant.  They  did  not  know  what  to  do  with 
it ;  and,  in  the  very  first  real  conflict  about  it,  they 
could  not  defend  it  by  force  of  arms.  Such  a  ma- 
jority is  not  fitted  for  the  ballot ;  nor  is  it  their 
right,  in  any  sense  which  implies  a  blessing  in  it, 
till  they  reach  a  stage  of  civilization  in  which 
they  can  not  be  "  bulldozed  "  out  of  it. 


Woman  Suffrage  judged  hy  Negro-Suffrage.      99 

Before  tlie  war,  when  servile  insurrection  was 
threatened,  the  Southern  planter  used  to  smile, 
saying,  "  One  gentleman  is  a  match  for  three  ne- 
groes." So  he  was,  so  long  as  the  traditions  of  a 
free  race  backed  him  up,  and  the  traditions  of 
a  slave  race  weighted  the  negro  down.  Why  did 
Gov.  Chamberlain  call  on  the  National  Govern- 
ment for  troops  to  execute  the  will  of  the  legal 
majority  of  South  Carolina  ?  With  twenty  thou- 
sand able-bodied  majority  at  his  beck,  why  did 
he  not  summon  them  to  execute  their  own  will 
in  the  defense  of  their  own  rights  and  his  ?  Gov. 
Rice  would  have  done  that  in  Massachusetts. 
Gov.  Robinson  would  have  done  it  in  New  York. 
The  Governor  of  Ohio  proclaimed  the  natural 
law  of  State  government,  when  he  was  impor- 
tuned, in  the  midst  of  the  late  labor  strikes,  to 
telegraph  to  Washington  for  troops,  and  replied, 
"  I  will  not  ask  for  one  bayonet  from  the  Presi- 
dent till  every  loyal  citizen  of  Ohio  is  whipped." 
Why  did  not  Govs.  Chamberlain  and  Packard  act 
on  the  same  theory? 

They  dared  not  do  it.  As  wise  statesmen  and 
humane  men,  they  could  not  do  it.  They  knew 
that  that  would  mean  a  war  of  races.  They  knew, 
that,  in  such  a  war,  the  weaker  race  must  go  down. 
They  knew  that  numbers,  unless  overwhelming 
beyond  the  facts  of  any  black  majority  in  the 
South,  was  the  least  important  factor  in  the  prob- 
lem. The  citizens  of  Liberia  show  only  a  prudent 
estimate  of  the  relative  strength  of  the  two  races, 


100  My  Portfolio, 

by  their  law  that  no  white  man  shall  own  a  rood 
of  land  within  the  bounds  of  the  republic.  Ha}^- 
tiens,  in  their  revolt  against  the  French  in  the 
time  of  Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  showed  the  same 
shrewd  foresight  in  the  motto  of  one  of  the  insur- 
gent banners :  "  One  white  man  too  much  for  St. 
Domingo."  The  white  race  in  either  of  the  revo- 
lutionized States  of  the  South,  in  such  a  war  of 
races,  if  let  alone  by  the  North,  would  have  been 
the  conqueror  in  a  month.  No  surer  way  could 
have  been  devised  to  remand  the  black  race  to 
slavery  under  laws  of  peonage,  than  to  have  ini- 
tiated the  war  of  races  just  then  and  there,  at  the 
close  of  a  political  campaign  which  had  convulsed 
the  nation,  and  ended  with  a  disputed  succession. 

No :  there  was  no  hope  for  the  negro ;  and  in 
mercy  to  us  all  Gov.  Chamberlain  held  still, 
though  it  was  in  his  power  to  plunge  the  conti- 
nent into  civil  war.  Laws  of  nature  had  been  dis- 
regarded in  giving  the  franchise  to  majorities  who 
were  unfit  for  it,  with  no  checks  conservative  of 
the  ascendency  of  intelligence  and  of  property; 
and,  at  the  very  first  real  trial  of  the  principle, 
the  retribution  came.  He  was  the  true  statesman 
who  bowed  in  silence  to  the  inevitable. 

Is  it  said,  in  reply,  that  this  assumes  that  right 
depends  on  might?  I  answer.  Some  rights  do  de- 
pend on  might.  The  right  of  revolution  does. 
Besides,  the  objection  begs  the  question.  Suf- 
frage, abstractly  considered,  is  nobody's  "right." 
No  "  Bill  of  Rights  "  ever  read  that  "  all  men  are 


Woman-Suffrage  judged  by  Negro- Suffrage,    101 

entitled  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness—  and  the  elective  franchise."  Suffrage  is 
primarily  a  responsibility^  and  a  fearful  one.  The 
"  right "  to  it  is  an  aftergrowth,  depending  on 
many  things,  of  which  one  is  the  power  to  defend 
it.  It  is  no  kindness,  but  a  fearful  wrong  rather, 
to  lay  it  upon  a  crowd  of  beings  who  must  fling 
it  away  in  a  panic  at  the  first  call  to  protect  it  by 
resort  to  arms. 

Here,  then,  lies  the  parallel  between  the  suf- 
frage of  the  negro  and  the  proposed  gift  of  it  to 
women.  Unlike  in  every  other  point  vital  to  the 
argument,  the  two  are  alike  in  this,  except  that 
the  disadvantage  of  woman  is  fourfold  that  of  the 
negro,  —  that  the  distribution  of  physical  power 
renders  the  gift  neither  a  right  nor  a  blessing. 
That  which  was  unnatural,  because  untimely,  to 
the  negro,  must  be  for  ever  unnatural  to  woman. 
She  could  never  defend  it  if  contested  by  man. 
She  could  never  enforce  laws  enacted  by  majori- 
ties of  female  voters,  in  opposition  to  men.  A 
war  of  races  would  be  a  tragedy.  A  war  of  sexes 
would  be  a  farce. 

Moreover,  legislative  hostility  of  the  sexes  is 
no  bugbear.  It  is  not  all  improbable.  Take  but 
a  single  case.  Suppose  a  declaration  of  war  by 
a  majority  of  female  legislators,  sustained  by  a 
majority  of  female  voters.  War  is  declared,  sup- 
plies are  voted,  taxation  is  decreed,  and  conscrip- 
tion ordered,  by  the  major  voice  of  woman.  Her 
natural  aversion  to  bloodshed  goes  for  nothing  in 


102  My  Portfolio, 

the  hypothesis.  History  shows  that  war  and  its 
pageantry  are  popular  with  the  female  sex.  Its 
weaknesses  in  that  direction  are  quite  equal  to 
man's.  Once  in  a  fight,  woman  is  a  more  unrea- 
soning animal  than  man.  No  other  mobs  equal 
those  of  women  in  ferocity.  Witness  the  Fau- 
bourg St.  Antoine. 

Our  late  civil  war  was  largely  the  work  of 
women.  Intelligent  Southerners  say  that  the  so- 
cial impulse  which  drove  their  section  into  rebel- 
lion was  the  furor  of  its  women.  I  have  been 
told  by  one  well  informed  of  the  facts,  that  even 
South  Carolina  probably,  and  Georgia  certainly, 
would  never  have  seceded,  but  for  the  mordant 
sarcasm  of  their  refined  and  cultured  ladies,  which 
made  it  impossible  for  chivalrous  young  men  to 
resist  the  current.  Few  little  incidents  of  the 
war  so  impressed  upon  our  soldiers  the  intensity 
of  Southern  attachment  to  the  "lost  cause,"  as 
that  of  the  Mississippi  maiden,  who,  in  defiance  of 
her  triumphant  foes,  sang  "Dixie,"  with  unbroken 
voice  and  flashing  eye,  while  the  home  of  her 
childhood  was  burning  to  the  ground  under  their 
torches. 

So,  too,  since  the  conflict  of  arms  has  ceased,  we 
are  told  that  the  conflict  of  opinion  and  of  feeling 
is  kept  up  most  bitterly  by  Southern  women.  No 
other  class  of  Southern  society  is  so  difficult  of 
"reconstruction"  as  its  intelligent  and  high-born 
ladies.  Planters,  merchants,  lawyers,  physicians, 
journalists,  of  the  South,  accept  the  situation  with 


Woman-Suffrage  judged  hy  Negro-Suffrage,     103 

equanimity,  and  her  soldiers  with  generosity,  when 
their  wives  and  daughters  will  not  permit  so  much 
as  the  hem  of  their  garments  to  touch  in  the  street 
those  of  their  Northern  sisters.  When  Gen.  Butler 
was  in  command  at  New  Orleans,  it  was  the  high- 
bred ladies  of  the  city  who  spat  in  the  faces  of 
officers  of  the  Federal  army.  Could  one  Southern 
man  have  been  found  who  would  have  done  that  ? 

The  opposition  of  woman  to  man  in  the  prose- 
cution of  war  and  its  collateral  measures,  then,  is 
not  impossible.  Let  that  hostility  express  itself  in 
legislation,  and  who  is  to  execute  its  will  ?  Who 
shall  carry  on  the  war  ?  Who  is  to  enforce  the  legis- 
lative will  of  woman  in  any  thing^  if  man  opposes 
it  ?  The  popular  parody  on  "  Woman's  Will "  may 
do  for  the  ball-room.  It  is  not  argument :  it  is  a 
wretched  libel  upon  woman,  which  has  neither  wit 
nor  wisdom. 

In  sober  earnest,  woman  with  the  gift  of  suffrage 
would  be  just  where  any  other  half  of  society 
would  be  if  destitute  of  resources  to  defend  the 
gift.  A  majority  of  women,  like  the  majority  of 
negroes,  must  forego  the  gift  whenever  the  frenzy 
or  the  trickery  of  political  passions  deprives  them 
of  it.  In  both  cases,  there  is  no  power  behind  to 
protect  it.  In  both  cases,  the  gift  of  it  is  legislation 
against  nature^  though  for  very  different  reasons. 
Such  legislation  must  be  expected  to  work  dis- 
aster in  a  hundred  ways  which  no  human  wisdom 
can  foresee.  Fight  with  gravitation,  and  you  are 
sure  to  be  worsted  in  catastrophes  which  gravita- 


104  My  Portfolio, 

tion  never  would  have  developed  if  it  had  not 
been  resisted.  Dam  up  the  Mississippi,  and  con- 
test its  passage  to  the  Gulf,  and  you  must  reckon 
upon  floods  and  inundations  away  back  to  the 
gorges  of  the  Kocky  Mountains.  So  long  as  water 
runs  down  hill,  so  long  will  Nature  have  her  way 
in  the  affairs  of  States  as  well,  in  defiance  of  en- 
actments of  law,  and  voices  of  majorities. 


XII. 

EEPOEM  m  THE  POLITICAL  STATUS  OF  WOMEIf. 

The  unsoundness  of  a  social  or  political  reform 
is  sometimes  indicated  by  a  certain  animus  which 
runs  through  the  reasoning  of  its  advocates,  quite 
as  clearly  as  by  the  inconclusiveness  of  the  reason- 
ing itself.  With  some  honorable  and  able  excep- 
tions, this  appears  to  be  the  rule  in  the  advocacy 
of  the  reform  of  which  the  extension  of  the  suf- 
frage to  women  is  the  initial  measure. 

1.  A  reverent  believer  in  the  Scriptures  can 
not  but  detect  evidence  of  this  distorted  animus 
in  the  coolness  with  which  the  biblical  argument 
in  the  negative  is  ignored  by  the  most  positive  ad- 
vocates of  the  reform.  For  distinction's  sake,  and 
in  justice  to  a  different  class  of  its  advocates,  they 
may  be  called  "  the  left  wing  "  of  the  reform.  One 
is  reminded  of  the  fling  which  used  to  be  thrown 
at  the  Bible  by  the  corresponding  wing  of  the 
old  antislavery  reformers,  whose  answer  to  the 
objection  that  the  Bible  tolerated  slavery  was, 
"  So  much  the  worse  for  the  Bible,  then !  " 

If  the  Scriptures  are  clear  and  positive  on  any 
subject  relating  to  the  organization  of  society,  they 

105 


106  My  Portfolio, 

are  so  on  this,  of  the  position  of  woman  in  the 
order  of  nature.  St.  Paul  defines  it  beyond  the 
reach  of  cavil.  He  reasons  upon  it,  not  as  an 
Oriental,  but  as  a  cosmopolitan.  He  pronounces 
judgment  upon  it,  not  as  a  priest,  but  as  a  philoso- 
pher. He  goes  back  to  the  beginning  of  things. 
He  finds  his  reason  for  the  subordination  of  woman 
in  the  very  act  of  her  creation.  He  could  not  well 
have  put  the  case  in  a  way  more  flatly  antagonistic 
to  the  opposite  extreme  of  our  day.  What  the 
inspired  teacher  meant  to  say  on  the  subject  admits 
of  no  reasonable  doubt.  If  fire  is  fire,  the  apostle's 
theory  of  the  social  economy  under  which  God 
placed  the  two  sexes  at  the  beginning,  and  which 
Christianity  leaves  as  it  finds  it,  makes  man  the 
head,  and  woman  something  other  than  the  head ; 
man  the  power  of  government.,  and  woman  not  that. 
Yet,  notwithstanding  the  indubitable  force  of 
the  inspired  reasoning,  it  is  scarcely  ever  heard 
of  among  those  who  chiefly  give  character  to  this 
modern  revolution.  They  often  ignore  the  bibli- 
cal argument  with  the  flippancy  with  which  one 
might  dismiss  the  law  of  the  Koran  on  the  subject. 
Inspiration  goes  for  nothing.  St.  Paul  is  no  more 
to  the  purpose  than  the  author  of  the  Book  of 
Mormon.  We  are  afraid  of  a  reform  which  starts 
with  such  an  animus  towards  the  word  of  God. 
It  is  not  a  philosophical  treatment  of  a  great  au- 
thority. It  is  not  a  judicial  treatment  of  great 
precedents.  It  is  not  a  Christian  treatment  of  a 
revelation  from  heaven. 


Reform  in  the  Political  Status  of  Woman.     107 

2.  A  similar  defect  in  the  animus  of  its  reason- 
ings is  found  in  the  antagonism  which  the  reform 
seems  to  foster  between  the  sexes.  Is  not  this 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  race  that  such 
antagonism  has  assumed  the  dignity  of  a  great 
humanitarian  revolution  ?  "  The  Subjection  of 
Woman  "  is  the  mildest  title  which  Mr.  Mill  could 
invent  even  for  his  philosophic  and  able  essay  on 
the  subject,  and  the  latest  synonym  is  "The  White 
Male  Dynasty."  The  sexes  are  made  to  appear 
as  master  and  servant,  as  usurper  and  victim,  as 
tyrant  and  slave.  Woman,  as  the  reform  will  have 
it,  lies  under  the  hoof  of  man.  Maidenhood  and 
marriage  are  only  different  phases  of  the  vassalage 
to  which  the  sex  is  born.  Law,  the  creature  of 
man's  will,  admits  no  other  destiny.  So  far  as  the 
reform  works  out  its  normal  results,  it  tends  to 
mutual  suspicion  and  alienation.  It  is  infusing  an 
element  of  mutual  defiance  into  our  legislation  on 
the  interests  of  the  sexes.  The  drift  of  it  is  to 
leave  absolutely  nothing  which  law  can  reach  to 
their  mutual  confidence  and  affection.  Its  aim 
seems  to  be  to  barricade  the  sexes  against  each 
other.  Our  statute-books  already  bristle  with  de- 
fenses of  woman  against  man.  Marriage,  therefore, 
as  it  looks  in  legislation,  is  but  a  truce  to  chronic 
war ;  and  we  are  told  that  this  is  but  the  begin- 
ning of  things. 

Evidence  is  not  distant  that  the  legitimate  fruit 
of  all  this  is  ripening  in  many  families.  Women 
whose   gentle   and  trustful  natures  would  never 


108  My  Portfolio. 

dream  of  a  sense  of  servitude  in  tlieir  lot  are  told 
of  "  chimeras  dire  "  in  the  very  construction  of  the 
old  English  marriage-vow,  under  which  duchesses 
and  queens  have  "  lived  and  loved  and  died  "  for 
centuries.  Unsuspecting  wives  are  tempted  to 
believe  there  must  be  some  fire  where  so  much 
smoke  is  puffed  into  their  faces.  The  relation  of 
elder  sisters  to  younger  brothers  —  in  some  re- 
spects the  most  beautiful,  and  at  the  same  time 
powerful,  phase  of  domestic  life  —  is  often  poisoned 
by  this  infection.  The  saddest  histories  in  this 
world  are  unwritten.  If  those  of  certain  families 
could  be  known,  it  would  be  found  that  the  last 
twenty  years  have  wrought  a  mournful  change  in 
many  homes.  The  change  is  due  chiefly  to  the 
silent  repulsions  produced  by  the  agitation  of  this 
reform  and  by  the  extreme  legislation  which  it 
has  created.  Profound  instincts  in  both  sexes  are 
chafed  into  morbid  remonstrance.  Without  a 
shadow  of  reason,  wives  have  grown  suspicious  of 
husbands,  and  husbands  have  retaliated  in  kind. 
The  ancient  unity  of  interests  has  been  broken  up. 
Extreme  and  morbid  individualism  has  been  fos- 
tered just  where  it  ought  never  to  have  been  heard 
of.  Persons  of  gentle  birth  and  refined  culture, 
who  never  would  have  created  such  a  state  of 
things,  accept  it,  unconscious  of  what  they  do. 
They  breathe  malaria  in  the  social  atmosphere, 
and  can  not  help  being  diseased  by  it.  As  a  con- 
sequence, married  life,  to  many  innocent  parties, 
becomes  one  long  disappointment  of  the  dreams 
of  vouth. 


Reform  in  the  Political  Status  of  Woman.     109 

In  other  cases,  young  mothers  chafe  under  the 
indignity  of  household  cares.  Daughters  unmar- 
ried become  discontented  with  the  care  of  aged 
and  infirm  parents,  and  sigh  for  a  "  mission  "  in 
some  loftier  "  sphere,"  which  means,  in  plain  lan- 
guage, a  more  public  sphere.  They  ask,  "  Why 
should  we,  rather  than  our  brothers,  do  this  drudg- 
ery ?  Why  are  we,  rather  than  they,  doomed  to 
this  uncongenial  and  obscure  toil  ?  Why  should 
the  pulpit,  the  bar,  and  the  senate  be  open  to 
them,  and  to  us  the  nursery  and  the  hospital? 
Some  feel  that  there  was  good  reason  for  the  old 
Jewish  prayer,  "  Lord,  I  thank  thee  that  I  was  I 
not  born  a  woman ! "  Such  is  the  drift  of  this  / 
innovation  where  the  spirit  of  "  the  left  wing " 
has  full  sway. 

To  what  more  probable  cause  than  this  can  be 
attributed  the  ominous  increase  in  the  number  of 
divorces,  in  the  last  two  decades,  in  the  most  staid 
and  conservative  of  our  New-England  States? 
The  statistics  published  by  Dr.  Allen  of  Lowell, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Dike  of  Vermont,  and  others,  threat- 
en the  rapid  incoming  of  the  most  morbific  of 
all  social  corruptions.  Nothing  else  is  so  pesti-  . 
lent  to  public  virtue  as  legal  immorality.  Teach 
woman  that  marriage  under  existing  conditions  is 
vassalage,  and  then  divorce  for  "incompatibility 
of  temper,"  or  any  other  "  skeleton  in  the  house," 
becomes  another  of  her  "  natural  rights."  The 
same  teaching  so  adulterates  public  sentiment 
that   it  will   sustain  courts  in  rulings  in  which 


110  3Iy  Portfolio. 

communism    exults,    and    of  which    Mormonism 
says,  "  Have  we  not  told  you  so  ?  " 

Is  the  picture  overdrawn  ?  It  is  to  be  hoped  so. 
But  thus  far  the  worst  working  of  this  reform  is 
secret.  It  is  history  unwritten.  It  is  pent  up  in 
silent  and  sullen  homes.    This  is  one  of  the  revolu- 

'  tions  which  come  "in  noiseless  slippers."  But  its 
tread  is  none  the  less  malign.     It  is  like  the  tread 

I  of  Attila  the  Hun,  who,  as  the  legend  reads,  left 
never  a  blade  of  grass  behind.  Who  does  not 
know  of  homes  within  the  circle  of  his  acquaint- 
ance in  which  the  beginnings  of  this  —  if  I  may 
use  a  word  of  rare  authority  —  denaturalizing  pro- 
cess are  visible  ? 

3.  The  same  passionate  reasoning  is  seen  in 
the  recklessness  with  which  the  dignity  of  mater- 
nity is  often  flouted  in  the  service  of  this  social 
revolution.  To  this  there  are  doubtless  many 
considerate  exceptions.  It  could  not  well  be 
otherwise.  Human  nature,  it  should  seem,  can 
not  often  wallow  so  deep  in  its  own  degradation 
that  men  and  women  shall  degrade  their  mothers 
in  their  theories  of  life.  But  this  reform  drifts 
towards  that.  Much  is  blurted  out  in  angry  de- 
fense of  it  which  implies  that.  It  is  the  inevitable 
sequence  of  any  theory  of  life  which  assumes  that 
woman  has,  or  can  have,  or  can  discover,  in  the 
wide  world,  a  "  mission  "  more  exalted  than  that 
of  a  mother  in  her  nursery.  Once  fill  a  young 
woman's  mind  with  the  notion  that  it  is  a  grander 
thing  to  be  a  speaker  on  the  platform  than  to  be  a 


Reform  in  the  Political  Status  of  Woman.     Ill 

wife  in  a  Christian  home,  that  it  is  a  nobler  dis- 
tinction to  be  a  successful  author  than  to  be  the  ^ 
happy  mother  of  children,  that  it  is  more  honora- 
ble to  head  a  half-score  of  "  committees  "  for  pub- 
lic service  than  it  is  to  be  a  loving  daughter  in  a 
father's  house,  the  model  of  refinement  to  younger 
brothers  and  sisters,  and  you  can  no  longer  find 
a  place  of  honor  in  her  thoughts  for  the  mission 
of  either  daughter,  wife,  or  mother.  These  rela- 
tionships become  lost  ideas.  They  must  be  super- 
latives or  nothing.  The  duties  they  involve  are 
either  honors  to  be  proud  of,  or  drudgeries  to  be 
got  rid  of.  The  law  of  nature  which  imposes 
them  on  woman  is  either  the  voice  of  God,  or  the 
voice  of  tyranny.  In  this  view  is  seen  the  massive 
volume  of  argument  against  this  reform  in  the 
title  of  Dr.  Bushnell's  book,  "  The  Reform  against 
Nature."  Never  before  was  so  much  of  solid  logic 
packed  into  four  words  as  we  find  in  this  invinci- 
ble thesis.  When  and  where  has  it  ever  been 
answered  ?  One  might  as  easily  answer  a  Minid- 
bullet. 

4.  The  same  absence  of  dispassionate  argu- 
ment is  seen  in  the  frequent  ignoring  of  certain 
objections  to  the  reform,  which  seem  to  its  oppo- 
nents to  involve  it  in  absurdity.  Few  organic 
changes  affecting  so  radically  the  interests  of 
modern  life  seem  to  us  to  have  so  few  positive 
and  relevant  ideas  as  this  has  in  that  extreme 
which  is  now  under  consideration.  For  the  most 
part,  it  revolves  around  two,  as  in  the  groove  of 


112  My  Portfolio. 

an  ellipse,  and  those  two  are  assumptions.  They 
are  the  intrinsic  rectitude  of  the  reform,  and  its 
"  manifest  destiny." 

To  the  common  judgment  of  men,  for  instance, 
it  seems  a  nan  sequitur  so  bald  that  it  has  the 
look  of  absurdity,  that  suffrage  should  be  extended 
to  women  because  it  is  a  "  natural  right."  Natu- 
ral to  what  ?  natural  to  whom  ?  natural  why  and 
wherefore?  the  average  mind  questions  incredu- 
lously. It  finds  in  itself  no  affirmative  intuitions. 
Has  the  world  revolved  through  these  thousands 
of  years  of  progress  without  finding  out  till  now 
so  remarkable  a  discovery  ?  Yet  what  "  Bill  of 
Rights  "  ever  included  it  ?  What  "  Declaration 
of  Independence,"  in  great  revolutions,  ever  as- 
serted it  ?  What  "  Magna  Charta  "  ever  demanded 
it  with  mailed  hand  ?  Wise  men  have  founded 
empires  and  republics  on  advanced  theories  of  lib- 
erty and  equality.  Yet  when  has  statesmanship 
the  wisest  ever  built  republic  or  empire  on  this 
as  its  corner-stone :  "  All  men  and  women  are  by 
nature  equal,  and  are  entitled  to  life,  liberty,  the 
pursuit  of  happiness  —  and  the  ballot"?  So  the 
"Declaration"  of  1776  ought  to  have  read,  if  the 
claim  in  question  is  true.  Why  did  not  the  revo- 
lutionary statesmen  of  our  heroic  age,  delving  as 
they  did  deep  down  among  the  roots  of  things, 
happen  to  see  so  obvious  a  right  as  this,  if  it  is  a 
right  in  the  very  nature  of  things  ?  Natural  rights, 
it  is  to  be  presumed,  are  not  far  to  seek,  nor  hard 
to  find.     They  lie  near  the  surface,  patent  to  the 


Reform  in  the  Political  Status  of  Woman.     113 

common  sense  of  men.  Yet  somehow  the  common 
sense  of  men,  even  under  the  favormg  conditions 
of  an  age  stimulated  by  a  revolutionary  atmos- 
phere, does  not  discern  this  right  in  the  nature 
of  the  human  mind.  We  charge  that  the  claim 
has  the  look  of  absurdity ;  and  all  the  answer  we 
get  is  that  it  is  a  right,  and  has  a  manifest  destiny. 
So  of  other  things  involved  in  this  reform,  which, 
but  for  the  gravity  of  the  interests  at  stake,  we 
should"  smile  at,  so  unnatural  do  they  look,  at  the 
first  assertion,  to  the  average  of  men.  The  ab- 
surdity of  thrusting  upon  one-half  of  the  human 
race  a  privilege  which  they  have  never  asked  for, 
and  their  desire  of  which  is  a  thing  not  proved ; 
the  absurdity  of  imposing  upon  one-half  of  the 
race  a  duty  the  gravest  that  organized  society 
creates,  but  which  they  have  no  power  to  defend 
in  an  emergency ;  the  absurdity  of  holding  woman 
to  military  service,  as  she  must  be  held  if  she  is 
to  stand  on  any  fair  terms  of  equality  Avith  man 
in  the  possession  of  this  "  natural  right ;  "  the  ab- 
surdity of  the  intermingling  of  the  gravest  duties 
of  the  court-room  and  the  senate-chamber  with 
those  of  the  nursery,  —  these,  and  other  like  things 
involved  in  the  proposed  revolution  and  its  se- 
quences, we  claim  have  the  look  of  absurdity  to 
the  average  sense  of  mankind.  Yet  they  are  com- 
monly treated  either  flippantly  or  passionately  in 
the  attempt  at  rejoinder ;  and  once  and  again  we 
are  told  the  revolution  is  right  because  it  is  right, 
and  it  must  succeed  because  it  will  succeed. 


114  My  Portfolio, 

If  any  thing  more  specific  than  this  is  urged  in 
repl}^,  we  still  find  a  want  of  relevance  which 
reminds  us  of  the  popular  fling,  which  we  would 
gladly  forget,  at  a  "  woman's  reason  "  for  things. 
We  ask,  for  example,  for  a  plain  answer  to  the 
argument  from  the  biblical  order  of  creation,  in 
which  man  was  first,  and  woman  was  ordained  to 
be  his  helpmeet,  and  we  are  told  that  men  beat 
their  wives.  We  ask  for  a  reverent  answer  to 
St.  Paul's  reasoning,  and  we  are  informed  that 
St.  Paul  was  a  bachelor.  We  ask  what  to  do  with 
the  apostle's  inspired  command  to  wives,  so  marked 
in  its  distinction  from  his  commands  to  husbands, 
and  we  are  reminded  that  the  apostle  was  a  Jew. 
We  urge  the  impossibility  of  woman's  defending 
the  ballot  by  force  of  arms,  and  we  are  answered 
that  woman  is  a  slave.  We  argue  the  incongruity 
of  the  duties  of  maternity  with  those  of  the  jury- 
box  and  the  bar,  and  we  are  instructed  gravely 
that  men  are  tyrants,  usurpers,  brutes.  We  speak 
of  the  dignity  of  marriage  and  the  sacredness  of 
motherhood,  and  we  are  met  with  the  discovery 
that  woman  has  a  "mission."  So  the  changes 
ring  on  a  few  ideas,  of  which  we  fail  to  see  the 
logical  relevance  to  the  point. 

We  can  not  help  knowing  that  great  revolutions 
carry  with  them  great  complications.  The  whole 
order  of  society  is  involved  in  them.  They  never 
end  where  they  begin.  They  never  do  away  with 
one  institution,  one  usage,  one  abuse,  and  stop 
there.     They  have  a  course  which  they  must  run, 


Reform  m  the  Political  Status  of  Woman.     115 

intricate  and  inevitable.  They  shake  the  world 
under  the  tramp  of  their  progress.  Sooner  or 
later,  armed  men  arc  apt  to  spring  up  in  their 
wake.  Such  must  be  the  destiny  of  this  one,  if  it 
succeeds.  Not  a  single  interest  of  society  can 
escape  it.  The  ballot  is  but  the  first  of  its  de- 
mands. The  whole  sweep  of  the  relation  of  the 
sexes,  and  all  the  duties  and  rights  of  both,  must 
come  under  revision.  Natural  foundations  on 
which  organized  society  has  been  built  from  the 
beginning  of  time,  and  without  which  it  is  a  thing 
not  proved  that  organized  society  can  exist  at  all, 
must  be  torn  up,  if  this  reform  is  carried  consis- 
tently to  its  maturity.  Nothing  else  like  it  exists 
in  history.  No  other  theory  of  life  has  ever  cut 
every  thing  loose  from  the  experience  of  the  race, 
and  put  every  thing  at  hazard  on  an  unproved 
and  untried  hj'pothesis.  If  such  a  reform  is  even 
to  be  talked  of  in  the  seclusion  of  universities 
and  libraries,  every  step  in  its  inception  should 
be  calmly  measured,  every  principle  involved 
should  be  dispassionately  studied,  every  argu- 
ment for  and  against  it  should  be  weighed  judi- 
cially. If  it  does  not  start  right,  it  can  end,  even 
as  a  theory,  only  in  chaos.  Specially  should  the 
animus  which  controls  it  be  reverent  to  the  word 
of  God,  and  respectful  to  the  common  sense  of 
men. 

There  is  a  ''  right  wing  "  of  this  reform  which 
may  command  the  trust  of  conservative  and  Chris- 
tian men.     Such  men  have  already  supported  it ; 


116  My  Portfolio. 

they  were  pioneers  in  it  before  the  "  left  "  extreme 
was  developed.  It  covers  especially  four  things ; 
viz.,  the  higher  education  of  women,  the  exten- 
sion of  the  range  of  their  employments  without 
loss  of  caste,  their  protection  from  swindlers  in 
their  tenure  of  property,  and  the  extension  of 
their  usefulness  in  organized  charities.  My  space 
forbids  the  discussion  of  these  any  further  than 
to  say  of  them  two  things.  One  is,  that  they  are 
yet  very  largely  on  trial ;  and  no  right-minded  man 
will  do  other  than  to  welcome  any  results  which 
fair  and  full  experiment  shall  prove.  The  other 
is,  that  every  true  interest  of  woman  in  the  experi- 
ment can  be  gained  without  complicating  it  with 
the  question  of  suffrage,  and  the  more  wisely  and 
quickly  gained  by  its  deliverance  from  the  unnatu- 
ral suspicions  and  alienations  which  political  agi- 
tation inevitably  creates.  Organic  improvements 
in  social  life  are  always  most  healthfully  advanced 
when  they  are  made  to  take  the  type,  not  of  re- 
form, but  of  development,  not  of  revolution,  but 
of  growth. 


XIII. 

THE  LENGTH  OF  SEKMOITS. 

A  STEAW  may  show  which  way  the  wind  blows. 
So  the  drift  of  opinion  respecting  the  length  of 
sermons  indicates,  as  it  seems  to  me,  certain  perils 
which  we  shall  do  well  to  ponder. 

1.  It  indicates  the  danger  of  a  disuse  of  doctri- 
nal preaching.  Any  one  who  knows  the  interior 
of  sermonizing  knows  that  thorough  discussion  of 
any  thing  which  deserves  it  requires  time.  No 
intelligent  preacher  ever  did  or  ever  will  discuss 
the  standard  doctrines  of  our  faith  in  sermons  of 
a  half-hour's  length.  Doctrinal  preaching  must 
become  obsolete,  is  now  obsolescent,  under  the 
imperious  demand  of  the  popular  taste  for  brevity. 

The  surest  way  to  make  such  preaching  inani- 
mate is  to  crowd  its  massive  themes  into  thirty 
minutes.  I  once  heard  in  the  city  of  Boston  a  dis- 
course on  the  nature,  the  necessity,  the  methods, 
the  author,  and  the  evidences  of  regeneration,  all 
within  thirty-five  minutes.  It  was  dryer  than  the 
chips  of  the  ark.  A  chapter  from  the  table  of 
contents  of  "  Knapp's  Theology  "  would  have  been 
as  impressive,  and  more  instructive.     It  fell  upon 

117 


118  My  Portfolio, 

a  restless  audience  like  lead,  and  by  no  means 
molten  lead  at  that. 

Say  what  we  may  of  the  power  of  compression, 
we  must  not  demand  of  a  preacher  impossibilities. 
We  do  not  demand  them  of  other  public  speakers. 
Mr.  Evarts  spoke  four  days,  and  Mr.  Beach  as 
many  more,  on  the  trial  of  Mr.  Beecher.  Edmund 
Burke  spoke  nine  days  on  the  impeachment  of 
"Warren  Hastings.  Rufus  Choate  once  spoke  four 
hours  in  prosecution  for  a  stolen  turkey.  It  was 
the  speech  which  first  made  him  famous.  Lawyers 
who  gain  their  cases  wear  no  strait-jackets  of 
thirty  minutes. 

Why  do  we  demand  of  a  preacher  limitations 
which  we  never  impose  on  other  men  who  have 
a  business  of  real  life  on  hand  ?  Is  it  not  because, 
for  the  time  being,  we  do  not  feel  that  theirs  is 
a  business  of  real  life?  There  is  the  rub.  Be 
it  so,  or  not,  the  conclusion  is  foregone,  that  you 
can  not  have  masterly  discussion  of  the  doctrines 
of  our  faith  in  harangues  of  half  an  hour.  Under 
such  a  policy  we  shall  eventually  have  a  Liliputian 
ministry.  The  themes  and  methods  of  the  pulpit 
must  degenerate  into  claptrap.  The  half-hour  for 
this  generation  means  fifteen  minutes  for  the  next. 

2.  A  second  peril  is,  that  our  theological  faith 
itself  will  become  obsolete.  In  this  matter  the 
pew  is  dependent  on  the  pulpit.  The  taste  of  the 
hearer  will  be  formed  by  the  practice  of  the  preach- 
er. Silence  of  doctrine  in  the  pulpit  means  igno- 
rance, and  at  last  unbelief,  in  the  pew. 


The  Length  of  Sermons.  119 

The  result  does  not  come  in  the  form  of  a  catas- 
trophe. No  moral  convulsion  scatters  the  faith  of 
centuries  in  a  night.  The  end  comes  insidiously. 
A  single  doctrine  of  the  system  grows  dim ;  the 
people  can  not  give  a  reason  for  their  faith  in  it ;  a 
23hosphorescent  skepticism  throws  odium  upon  it ; 
fellowship  with  unbelievers  in  it  becomes  an  open 
question,  and  then  the  end  of  it  is  not  far  off. 
Yet  it  is  more  than  the  end  of  that  doctrine.  The 
faith  we  hold  is  a  system.  No  mind  can  self-con- 
sistently,  and  no  thoughtful  mind  will,  surrender 
one  element  of  it  without  putting  in  pawn  its  faith 
in  all  the  rest. 

Do  we  not  see  signs  of  such  theological  degen- 
eracy in  our  own  times  ?  Is  not  the  taste  for  theo- 
logical inquiry  declining  in  our  churches  ?  Thirty 
years  ago  I  once  heard  the  pastor  of  a  church  in 
Boston  say  that  there  were  laymen  in  his  church 
who  had  read  more  theology  than  he  had.  Are 
there  such  laymen  in  any  church  in  Boston  now  ? 
Who  of  our  laymen  now  store  their  libraries  with 
the  standards  of  theological  science  ?  Who,  out- 
side of  the  clergy,  reads  now  the  works  of  Presi- 
dent Edwards  ?  Yet  I  have  in  my  library  a  copy 
of  those  works,  well  worn  by  the  thoughtful  and 
devout  study  of  the  senior  deacon  of  the  Pine- 
street  Church  of  Boston  in  1845.  His  sabbath 
recreation  he  used  to  find  in  reading  Edwards  on 
"  God's  End  in  Creation." 

I  may  be  wrong  (I  surely  do  not  mean  to  croak); 
but,  to  my  view,  one  of  the  most  formidable  signs 


120  My  Portfolio. 

of  a  decline  of  theological  taste  among  us  is  this 
clamor  of  the  people  for  sermons  of  thirty  minutes, 
and  their  chuckling  Avith  delight,  like  children  ten 
years  of  age,  if  the  com2olaisant  preacher  is  con- 
tent with  twenty.  Yet  they  are  not  so  far  wrong 
as  he  is.  A  preacher  whose  subjects  and  trains 
of  thought  can  he  commonly  discussed  in  twenty 
minutes  gets  all  that  he  deserves  if  he  be  tolerated 
so  long  as  that. 

3.  One  other  peril  follows,  as  a  matter  of  course. 
It  is  that  our  Congregational  churches  will  deteri- 
orate in  character  by  a  radical  change  of  stock. 
From  their  beginning,  these  churches  have  appealed 
to  the  most  thoughtful  classes  of  the  people.  They 
have  been  built  up  from  a  thinking  stock.  We 
have  always  demanded  an  educated  clergy  in  our 
pulpits.  We  have  esteemed  as  above  all  price  a 
high-toned  theological  literature.  Wherever  New- 
England  Congregationalism  goes,  one  of  the  first 
signs  of  its  existence  is  a  college.  We  build  col- 
leges before  we  build  bridges. 

Hence  our  denominational  strength  is  in  our 
pulpits.  Our  forms  of  worship  are  needlessly  and 
perilously  bare.  Our  ministry  are  not  a  priest- 
hood, and  our  communion-tables  are  not  altars. 
Our  architectural  taste  is  not  fascinating.  Our 
antiquity  is  nothing  burdensome.  Our  strength 
is  in  our  pulpits,  or  nowhere.  In  this  respect  we 
but  represent  the  stalwart  character  of  our  theol- 
ogy. It  is  yet  to  be  proved  that  we  can  change 
our  record  in  these  things,  without  alienating  from 


The  Length  of  Sermons.  121 

us  the  thoughtful  and  conservative  classes,  on 
whose  support  Congregationalism  has  lived,  and 
whose  religious  sympathies  it  represents.  It  is  a 
dangerous  experiment  to  tamper  with  the  old 
stock. 

Specially  is  any  thing  a  peril  to  us  which  un- 
dermines our  pulpit.  Ours  must  be  a  reasoning 
pulpit.  It  must  penetrate  things,  prove  things, 
build  deep,  and  build  high.  To  do  this,  it  must 
discuss  great  themes  in  great  ways.  It  must 
handle  strong  doctrines,  elemental  truths,  the 
landmarks  of  Christian  thought,  which  centuries 
have  elaborated.  It  can  never  live  on  evangelistic 
labors,  nor  on  what  is  now  understood  by  "re- 
vival-preaching." 

That  is  a  far-reaching  and  may  be  a  fatal  error, 
therefore,  which  would  stifle  our  preachers  by  the 
gag  of  fifteen  minutes,  or  throttle  them  with  the 
garotte  of  the  half-hour.  The  danger  is,  that 
the  result  will  be  to  hand  over  to  wiser  build- 
ers the  natural  stock  of  Congregational  churches, 
and  leave  us  to  —  the  east  wind. 

We  will  not,  then,  say,  as  the  Rev.  Thomas  H. 
Skinner,  D.D.,  of  New  York  used  to  say,  and  as 
he  could  afford  to  say,  "  If  my  people  will  not 
hear  me  an  hour,  they  may  stay  away."  But  we 
beg  our  thoughtful  laymen,  who  can  and  who 
ought  to  give  character  to  the  public  taste  in  this 
thing,  that  they  will  reconsider  their  apparent 
verdict  thus  far  expressed. 

Encourage  a  thinking  ministry.     Cultivate  stu- 


122  My  Portfolio. 

clious  hearing.  Welcome  doctrinal  discussions. 
And,  that  these  things  may  be  done,  give  the 
preachers  time  to  say  their  best  wisdom,  their 
richest  experience,  their  profoundest  teachings  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  Do  not  make  the  tastes  of  your 
little  children  the  rule  of  your  pulpits.  Are  ye 
not  men  ? 

A  good  sermon  is  worth  a  hearing  of  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  :  that  will  do  for  the  general 
average.  But  for  the  best  sermons,  on  the  most 
profound  of  themes,  give  us  the  full  hour.  We 
are  but  men.  We  can  not  preach  by  telegraph. 
The  lightning  does  not  play  upon  our  tongue. 
Some  of  us  are  slow  of  speech.  The  bees  did  not 
drop  honey  on  our  lips  in  our  cradles.  Bear  with 
our  infirmity,  and  do  not  double  it  by  requiring 
of  us  what  apostles  never  did,  and  could  not 
have  done  if  they  would. 


XIY. 

THE  OALYINISTIO  THEOET  OF  PEEAOHIKG. 

There  is  something  sublime  in  the  audacity 
with  which  a  certain  class  of  journalists  insist 
upon  the  decadence  of  that  type  of  theology  which 
has  for  three  centuries  been  dominant  in  the  reli- 
gious thought  of  Christendom.  When  an  eminent 
teacher  of  that  theology  retires  from  his  profes- 
sional chair,  to  gather  up  the  fruits  of  forty  years 
in  which  he  has  reconstructed  the  forms  of  the 
old  faith,  giving  to  it  improved  statements  and 
definitions,  and  adding  unequaled  brilliancy  to 
its  defenses,  he  is  politely  bowed  out  of  sight  by 
the  fling  that  his  is  a  defunct  belief.  It  is  not 
only  obsolescent,  but  obsolete.  It  is  dead,  dead, 
dead,  never  to  be  revived  in  the  religious  thinking 
of  the  world.  One  erudite  critic  even  goes  so 
far  as  to  affirm  that  the  reason  for  the  learned 
professor's  retirement  is  that  the  theology  he  has 
taught  is  dead.  Not  the  secret  reason  only,  held 
in  mortified  silence,  but  the  avowed  and  official 
reason,  as  the  critic  will  have  it,  is,  that  the  the- 
ology of  the  venerable  teacher  is  dead.  He  retires 
with  melancholy  confession  of  a  wasted  life.     His 

123 


124  My  Portfolio, 

life's  work  can  no  more  be  tolerated  by  a  dis- 
gusted and  indignant  world.  Like  the  superin- 
tendent of  a  bankrupt  factory,  he  is  dismissed  as 
one  whose  services  are  no  longer  wanted. 

Well,  so  be  it,  if  so  it  must  be.  Learned  pro- 
fessors can  take  care  of  themselves.  But,  before 
bidding  a  long  farewell  to  this  faith  of  our  fathers, 
it  is  worth  while  to  give  one  backward  look  upon 
it,  for  the  sake  of  seeing  what  it  has  been  and 
has  done  for  the  generations  it  has  held  in  bondage. 

One  representation  of  it  is  found  in  the  Calvin- 
istic  puli^it  of  some  half-score  of  religious  denom- 
inations. Indeed,  in  one  aspect  of  it,  its  most 
brilliant  history  is  in  the  pulpit.  Our  greatest 
theologians  have,  as  a  rule,  been  our  greatest 
preachers.  The  distinctive  glory  of  their  faith  is 
that  it  can  be  preached.  It  has  given  to  the 
Church  an  ideal  of  Christian  preaching  which  is 
unique.  That  ideal  is  built  on  strong  thought 
from  biblical  resources.  It  has  created  the  most 
solidly  intellectual  and  biblical  pulpit  known  in 
Christian  history.  The  ablest  clergy  of  the  world 
have  preached  this  "  defunct "  theology.  Litera- 
ture has  received  from  them  almost  all  the  literary 
standards  which  have  had  their  origin  in  the  pul- 
pit. Everywhere  their  pulpit  has  found  affinities 
with  the  most  intellectual  elements  in  Christian 
communities.  It  has  commanded  the  docile  hear- 
ing of  a  larger  proportion  of  men  than  any  other, 
and  has  held  them  in  reverent  attendance  on 
public  worship  in  ages  of  unbelief.     It  has   at- 


i 


The   Calvinistic  Theory  of  Preaching.      125 

tracted  more  powerfully  than  any  other,  men  of 
the  liberal  professions.  Senator  Hoar  has  but 
recently  acknowledged  the  obligations  of  the  bar 
to  the  training  of  the  pulpit.  And  it  needs 
hardly  to  be  said,  that  the  pulpit  which  has  trained 
the  leading  minds  in  the  history  of  the  American 
bar  has  been  chiefly  the  Calvinistic  pulpit.  Under 
various  denominational  titles,  the  Calvinistic  ideal 
of  preaching  has  been  the  one  from  which  the 
most  eminent  jurists  of  our  land  have  derived 
inspiration.  From  Samuel  Adams  downward, 
they  have  learned  from  the  pulpit  how  to  reason 
upon  the  most  profound  problems  and  principles 
of  civil  government.  From  discussions  of  the 
divine  government  they  have  learned  what  human 
government  ought  to  be.  Even  Thomas  Jefferson 
confessed  that  his  first  clear  conception  of  a  re- 
public came  from  the  polity  of  an  obscure  Baptist 
church  in  Virginia. 

That  large  class  of  minds,  also,  from  the  middle 
ranks  of  society,  which  represents  the  culture 
of  mind  as  distinct  from  the  culture  of  man- 
ners, has  come  under  the  teaching  of  the  Cal- 
vinistic pulpit  more  largely  than  under  that  of 
any  other.  Our  pulpit  has  met  the  demand 
of  thinking  men  for  a  thinking  clergy,  for  preach- 
ers who  are  at  home  in  libraries.  It  has  created 
preachers  who  could  stand  the  draft  which  the 
pulpit  makes  on  a  permanent  ministrj^  Service 
of  forty  and  fifty  years  has  not  exhausted  their 
resources.      In  the   most  powerful  religious  awa- 


126  My  Portfolio, 

kenings  of  the  recent  ages  this  style  of  preaching 
has  held  in  hand  the  emotive  surges  of  large  audi- 
ences, and  kept  them  safe  from  fanatical  vagaries, 
as  no  other  theory  of  preaching  has  done  or  could 
have  done.  In  the  most  cultivated  periods  of 
history,  and  the  most  agitated  periods,  in  which 
men  have  run  wild  with  unbelief,  it  has  com- 
manded the  conservative  forces  of  society.  Thus 
it  has  furnished  solid  bottom  on  which  to  anchor 
popuhir  inquiry.  Centuries  of  discussion  have 
accumulated  improvements  which  the  ruder  forms 
of  its  faith  needed.  Thus  improved  and  rounded, 
that  faith  lives  to-day,  the  most  virile  repre- 
sentative of  Christian  thought  which  the  world 
contains,  in  the  form  of  popular  belief.  It  is 
pre-eminently  the  people's  faith.  They  believe 
it.  Their  hearts  respond  to  it.  So  far  as  any 
thing  of  human  origin  can  receive  the  divine 
sanction  in  history,  this  high-toned  intellectual 
ideal  of  a  Christian  pulpit  has  received  it.  It 
speaks  for  itself  in  no  uncertain  strains.  A  cen- 
tury of  retrograde  movement  and  consequent  dis- 
aster could  not  blot  out  the  record  of  what  it  has 
been  and  has  done  for  the  redemption  of  man- 
kind. Die  it  may,  if  die  it  must;  but,  as  Daniel 
Webster  said  of  the  heroic  age  of  our  Kepublic, 
'  "  the  past  at  least  is  secure." 

To  cull  but  a  few  illustrious  names  here  and 
there  from  the  roll  of  this  Calvinistic  ministry, 
mark  the  pulpit  of  Calvin  himself  at  Geneva,  that 
of  John  Knox  in  Glasgow,  that  of  Dr.  South  in 


The   Calvinistic  Theory  of  Preaching.       127 

London,  that  of  Chalmers  in  Edinburgh,  and  of 
his  successor,  Dr.  Candlish,  that  of  Edwards  in 
Northampton,  that  of  Hopkins  in  Newport,  that 
of  Davies  in  Virginia,  those  of  Spring  and  Alex- 
ander in  New  York,  that  of  Albert  Barnes  in 
Philadelphia,  those  of  Dr.  Griffin  and  Dr.  Beecher 
in  Boston,  and  that  of  President  Finney  in  Ober- 
lin.  These  pulpits  have  passed  into  history. 
They  were  filled  by  men  of  the  Pauline  stamp 
of  intellectual  coin.  The  majority  of  them  were 
productive  of  profound  religious  awakenings, 
which,  but  for  them,  would  have  run  into  mael- 
stroms of  fanaticism.  They  created,  and,  what 
is  more,  controlled  such  awakenings  in  the  inter- 
est of  a  thoughtful  piety.  This  they  did  by  their 
union  of  a  rousing  eloquence  with  a  solid  think- 
ing power.  They  illustrate  magnificently  the 
practicability  of  uniting  great  hearts  with  great 
intellects,  deep  feeling  with  deep  thinking,  intel- 
lectual conquest  with  the  baptism  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  Such  commingling  of  elements  in  the 
world's  leaders  constitutes  the  power  which  God 
honors  in  great  crises  of  history.  In  the  stillness 
of  its  working  he  makes  his  voice  heard. 

Are  such  pulpits  dying  out  of  the  world's 
thought?  Is  the  faith  they  have  taught  deca- 
dent ?  Is  the  system  of  agencies  which  they  have 
transmitted  to  thousands  of  living  pulpits  sinking 
into  popular  contempt?  AVhere  are  the  signs  of 
it?  They  vary  in  vital  vigor:  sometimes  for  a 
decade  they  will  seem  less  powerful  than  before. 


128  My  Portfolio. 

No  great  system  of  agencies  is  always  equal  to  its 
history.  But,  all  things  considered,  we  do  not 
see  in  the  Calvinistic  pulpits  of  America  any  per- 
vasive signs  of  decay,  such  as  must  be  seen  when 
the  life-blood  of  the  faith  they  teach  runs  low  to 
the  death.  Somehow  these  pulpits  still  gather 
under  their  sway  docile  and  believing  audiences 
every  Lord's  Day,  in  numbers  unequaled  by  any 
other  weekly  gatherings  at  the  bidding  of  the 
same  voice.  What  other  social  forces  are  takincr 
the  place  of  these  ?  What  other  names  of  popu- 
lar repute  are  supplanting  those  which  this  Cal- 
vinistic pulpit  has  made  venerable  in  our  history  ? 
It  requires  but  very  few  words  from  unbelieving 
lips  to  consign  verbally  to  oblivion  a  great  truth, 
a  great  book,  a  great  system,  a  great  man ;  but 
to  sweep  out  of  being  the  work  which  these  have 
done  in  the  world,  —  that  is  a  different  affair. 
Early  in  the  autumn  I  have  heard  three  or  four 
/  crickets  under  the  hearthstone  serenading  each 
other  in  voices  sharp  and  shrill,  which  seemed  as 
if  they  were  a  thousand  strong.  They  made  the 
whole  house  ring.  But  the  solid  earth  moved  on 
its  way,  the  autumn  passed  into  winter,  the  crick- 
ets died,  and  were  no  more  heard.  Such  a  passing 
racket  are  the  harpings  of  a  few  skeptical  minds 
upon  this  everlasting  claim  that  our  faith  is  de- 
funct, our  theology  obsolete,  our  pulpit  dead.  As 
to  any  real  force  in  these  flings  at  the  old  theol- 
ogy, either  in  giving  it  its  death-blow  or  express- 
ing its  history,  they  remind  me  of  Robert  Southey's 


The   Calvinistic  Theory  of  Preaching.       129 

answer  to  a  flippant  critic,  who  declared  that 
"  The  Edinburgh  Review "  had  crushed  Words- 
worth's "  Excursion."  "  Crush  the  Excursion  !  " 
said  the  brother-poet,  pointing  up  to  the  moun- 
tain back  of  Wordsworth's  home :  "  you  might 
as  well  try  to  crush  Skiddaw ! "  So  say  we  to 
these  dapper  critics  of  the  theology  and  of  the 
pulpit  which  are  built  into  our  history:  "as 
easily  crush  Skiddaw !  "  Yes,  "  the  strength  of 
the  hills  is  His  also." 


XV. 

THE  THEOLOGY  OP  "THE  MAEBLE  FAUN." 

This  masterpiece  of  Hawthorne  presents  a  mar- 
velous picture  of  the  Christian  theology  on  the 
nature  of  sin,  and  its  workings  in  the  human  soul. 
An  epitome  of  the  story,  familiar  as  it  is,  is  neces- 
sary to  illustrate  the  point  in  question. 

Miriam,  a  passionate  young  artist,  is  betrothed 
in  her  youth  to  a  man  who  becomes  a  monster  in 
iniquity.  She  flees  to  Rome  to  escape  the  bond- 
age, but  not  without  incurring  sus]3icion  of  her 
own  innocence.  There  she  hopes  to  outlive  and 
bury  the  past,  which  hangs  like  a  pall  over  her 
memory  and  her  character.  Her  hated  paramour, 
if  such  he  was,  finds  his  way  also  to  Rome,  and 
suddenly  confronts  her  in  her  rambles  in  the  Cat- 
acombs, as  a  monk.  He  persecutes  her  with  his 
marital  claims  and  threats  of  exposure.  Mean- 
while, she  has  made  the  acquaintance  of  Hilda,  a 
singularly  pure  and  high-souled  sister-artist,  and 
of  Donatello,  a  young  Italian  who  is  the  personifi- 
cation of  infantile  joyousness  and  moral  weakness. 
Between  him  and  Miriam  there  springs  up  the 
inevitable  love-tie  of  romance. 

130 


The   Theology  of  "  The  llarhle  Faunr     131 

At  length  it  is  the  fate  of  those  two  to  encoun- 
ter the  wretch,  who  dogs  the  steps  of  the  unfortu- 
nate girl,  on  the  brow  of  the  old  Tarpeian  Ilock. 
There  the  tragedy  of  the  story  is  perpetrated. 
Donatello,  in  a  paroxysm  of  jealous  rage,  springs 
upon  him,  throttles  him,  and  lifts  him  over  the 
edge  of  the  precipice.  Just  then,  casting  his  eyes 
around  inquiringly,  he  catches  Miriam's  answering 
looh  of  approval,  and  he  dashes  the  lost  man  to 
the  bottom,  where  he  lies  a  mangled  corpse.  Her 
friend  Hilda,  at  a  little  distance,  hears  the  mufQed 
sound  of  struggle,  and,  turning,  reads  with  her 
keen  artistic  sense  that  fatal  look  in  the  face  of 
]\Iiriam.  The  deed  is  done,  witnessed  by  the 
shocked  eye  of  innocence,  and  the  friends  go  on 
their  way. 

Out  of  these  materials,  and  others  of  secondary 
meaning,  is  wrought  a  most  vivid  reproduction 
of  the  biblical  doctrine  of  sin  as  an  experience 
flaming  in  human  souls.  Among  a  multitude  of 
points  in  which  a  Christian  reader  detects  the  re- 
semblance, the  following  are  the  most  vivid  :  — 

1.  The  spiritual  and  subtle  nature  of  sin.  A 
single  look  of  the  eye  was  all  of  Miriam's  partici- 
pation in  the  deed ;  yet  when  it  is  done,  and  the 
blackness  of  it  begins  to  cloud  over  the  lost  inno- 
cence of  Donatello,  he  says,  " '  I  did  what  your 
eyes  bade  me  do,  when  I  asked  them  with  mine, 
as  I  held  the  wretch  over  the  precipice.'  These 
last  words  struck  Miriam  like  a  bullet.  Could  it 
be  so  ?     Had  her  eyes  assented  to  the  deed  ?     She 


132  My  Portfolio, 

had  not  known  it.  But  alas !  looking  back  into 
the  turmoil  and  frenzy  of  the  scene  just  acted,  she 
could  not  deny  —  she  was  not  sure  w^hether  it 
might  be  so  or  no  — that  a  wild  joy  had  flamed  up 
in  her  heart  when  she  beheld  her  persecutor  in 
mortal  peril.  Was  it  horror,  or  ecstasy,  or  both 
in  one?  Be  the  emotion  what  it  might,  it  had 
blazed  up  more  madly  when  Donatello  flung  his 
victim  off  the  cliff,  and  more  and  more  while  his 
shriek  went  quivering  downward.  With  the  dead 
thump  on  the  stones  below  had  come  an  unuttera- 
ble horror. 

"  '  And  my  eyes  bade  you  do  it,'  repeated  she. 
'  Yes,  you  have  killed  him,  Donatello  !  He  is  quite 
dead,  stone  dead !  Would  I  were  so  too !  Yes, 
Donatello,  you  speak  the  truth.  My  heart  con- 
sented to  what  you  did.  We  two  slew  yonder 
wretch.' " 

2.  With  equal  vividness  he  paints  the  despair 
of  unpardonable  guilt. 

Says  Miriam  to  Donatello,  " '  You  are  shaking  as 
with  the  cold  fit  of  a  Roman  fever.' 

" '  Yes,'  "  says  Donatello,  "  '  my  heart  shivers.' 

" '  My  sweet  friend,  what  can  I  say  to  comfort 
you?' 

" '  Nothing.  Nothing  will  ever  comfort  me.  I 
have  a  great  weight  here,  Happy  ?  Ah,  never 
again  —  never  again !  Ah,  that  terrible  face  —  do 
you  call  that  unreal  ? '  " 

Again,  after  years  of  unavailing  remorse,  the 
horror-stricken  man  thus  pictures  to  an  unsuspect- 


The   Theology  of  ''  The  Marble  Faunr     133 

ing  stranger  the  scene  of  a  death  by  being  flung  off 
a  precipice.  "  '  Imagine  a  fellow-creature,  breath- 
ing now  and  looking  you  in  the  face,  and  now 
tumbling  down,  down,  down,  with  a  long  shriek 
wavering  after  him  all  the  way.  He  does  not 
leave  his  life  in  the  air.  No  ;  but  it  stays  in  him 
till  he  thumps  against  the  stones.  Then  he  lies 
there,  frightfully  quiet,  a  dead  heap  of  bruised 
flesh  and  broken  bones !  A  quiver  runs  through 
the  crushed  mass,  and  no  more  movement  after 
that  —  no,  not  if  you  would  give  your  life  to  make 
him  stir  a  finger.  Ah !  terrible,  terrible  I  Yes, 
I  would  fain  fling  myself  down  for  the  very  dread 
of  it;  that  I  might  endure  it  once  for  all,  and 
dream  of  it  no  more. '  " 

3.  There  is  a  profound  insight  into  the  expe- 
rience of  real  life  in  the  author's  picture  of  the 
recoil  of  guilt  from  the  services  of  religion. 

Speaking  of  the  monster  monk,  he  writes, 
"  There  was  something  in  this  man's  memory  which 
made  it  awful  for  him  to  think  of  prayer.  Nor 
would  any  torture  be  more  intolerable  than  to 
be  reminded  of  such  divine  comfort  and  succor  as 
await  pious  souls  merely  for  the  asking.  The 
torment  was  perhaps  the  token  of  a  temperament 
deeply  susceptible  of  religious  impressions,  but 
which  had  been  wronged,  violated,  and  debased, 
till  at  length  it  was  capable  only  of  terror  from 
the  sources  that  were  intended  for  our  purest 
and  loftiest  consolation." 

4.  One  can  not  but  think  of  the  day  of  judg- 


134  BIij  Portfolio. 

ment  in  reading  Hawthorne's  conception  of  tlie 
inrvitahle  exclusioyi  of  the  guilty  from  the  iimocent. 
Miriam,  reflecting  on  tlie  change  which  crime 
had  wrought  in  her  relations  to  her  friend  Hilda, 
feels  in  her  soul  the  unnaturalness  of  a  friendship 
between  such  angelic  innocence  as  Hilda's  and 
such  guilt  as  her  own.  She  soliloquizes,  "  '  I  will 
never  permit  her  sweet  touch  again.  ]\Iy  lips,  my 
hand,  shall  never  meet  Hilda's  more.'  "  Soon  they 
stand  face  to  face.  "  Miriam  at  once  felt  a  great 
chasm  opening  between  them  two.  They  might 
gaze  at  one  another  from  the  opposite  side,  but 
without  the  possibility  of  ever  meeting  more ;  or 
at  least,  since  the  chasm  could  never  be  bridged 
over,  they  must  tread  the  whole  round  of  eterni- 
ty, to  meet  on  the  other  side.  There  was  even  a 
terror  in  the  thought  of  their  meeting  again.  It 
was  as  if  Hilda  and  Miriam  were  dead,  and  could 
no  longer  hold  intercourse  witliout  violating  a  spir- 
itual law.  '  Hilda,  jo\xv  very  look  seems  to  put 
me  beyond  the  limits  of  human  kind.'  " 

5.  With  the  same  terrible  truthfulness  to  life, 
he  represents  the  overwhelming  recoil  of  innocence 
from  guilt.  Hilda,  on  meeting  Miriam,  puts  out 
her  hand  with  an  involuntary  repellent  gesture. 
When  Miriam,  forgetful  cf  her  resolutions,  pleads 
with  her  by  the  sacredness  of  their  common  woman- 
hood, to  befriend  her  as  if  her  guilt  were  nought, 
Plilda  exclaims,  " '  Do  not  bewilder  me  thus,  Mir- 
iam. If  I  were  one  of  God's  angels,  with  a  nature 
incapable  of  stain,  and  garments  that  could  never 


The  Theology  of  ''  The  Marble  Faunr     135 

be  spotted,  I  would  keep  ever  at  your  side,  and  try 
to  lead  you  upward.  But  I  am  a  poor,  lonely  girl, 
whom  God  has  set  here  in  an  evil  world,  and 
given  her  only  a  white  robe,  and  bid  her  wear  it 
back  to  him  as  white  as  when  she  put  it  on. 
Your  powerful  magnetism  would  be  too  much  for 
me.  Therefore,  Miriam,  before  it  is  too  late,  I 
mean  to  put  faith  in  this  awful  heart-quake,  which 
warns  me  henceforth  to  avoid  you.  God  forgive 
me  if  I  have  said  a  needlessly  cruel  word.'  " 

6.  Inspired  thought  is  scarcely  more  real  in  de- 
claring the  curse  of  the  very  knowledge  of  sin  to 
innocent  beings.  Says  Hilda,  "  '  It  is  very  dread- 
ful !  Ah,  now  I  understand  how  the  sins  of  gen- 
erations past  have  created  an  atmosphere  of  sin 
for  those  that  follow.  While  there  is  a  single 
guilty  person  m  the  universe,  each  innocent  one 
must  feel  his  innocence  tortured  by  that  guilt. 
Your  deed,  Miriam,  has  darkened  the  whole  sky. 
Every  crime  destroys  more  Edens  than  our  own.'  " 

7.  The  novelist  becomes  more  truthful  than  the 
painter  in  portraying  the  terrific  nature  of  conflict 
with  sin.  Miriam,  reasoning  from  her  own  deathly 
consciousness  of  the  evil  of  sin,  thus  criticises 
Guido's  painting  of  Michael  and  the  Dragon: 
" '  The  archangel  now,  how  fair  he  looks,  with  his 
unrufQed  wings,  with  his  unbacked  sword,  and 
that  exquisitely  fitting  sky-blue  tunic,  cut  in  the 
latest  paradisiacal  mode !  AVhat  a  dainty  air  of 
the  first  celestial  society !  With  what  half-scorn- 
ful delicacy  he  sets  his  prettily  sandaled  foot  on 
the  head  of  his  prostrate  foe  ! 


136  My  Portfolio. 

"  '  But  is  it  thus  that  Virtue  looks  the  moment 
after  his  death-struggle  with  Evil  ?  No,  no  !  I  could 
have  told  Guido  better.  A  full  third  of  the  arch- 
angel's feathers  should  have  been  torn  from  his 
wings,  the  rest  all  ruffled  till  they  looked  like 
Satan's  own.  His  sword  should  be  streaming  with 
blood,  perhaps  broken  halfway  to  the  hilt.  His 
armor  crushed,  his  robes  rent,  his  breast  gory,  a 
bleeding  gash  on  his  brow,  cutting  right  across 
the  stern  scowl  of  battle.  He  should  press  his 
foot  hard  down  upon  the  old  serpent,  as  if  his 
very  soul  depended  on  it;  feeling  him  squirm 
mightily,  and  doubting  whether  the  battle  were 
half  over  yet,  and  how  the  victory  might  turn. 
The  battle  was  never  such  a  child's  play  as  Guido's 
dapper  archangel  seems  to  have  found  it.'  " 

8.  Milton's  conception  of  the  horrible  affinity 
between  sin  and  death  is  recalled  by  Hawthorne's 
conception  of  the  loathsome  brotherhood  of  sin. 
Over  against  the  solitude  of  sin,  in  its  seclusion 
from  innocence,  lies  the  equally  truthful  fact  of 
the  fraternity  of  all  guilty  beings  with  each  other. 
"  Their  deed  had  wreathed  itself,  as  she  had  said, 
like  a  serpent,  in  inextricable  links,  about  both 
their  souls,  and  drew  them  into  one  by  its  terrible 
contractile  power.  It  was  closer  than  a  marriage- 
bond." 

" '  O  friend ! '  cried  Miriam, '  are  you  conscious, 
as  I  am,  of  this  companionship  that  knits  our 
heart-strings  together  ? ' 

"'I  feel  it,  Miriam:  we  draw  one  breath,  we 
live  one  life.     Cemented  with  his  blood.' 


The  Theology  of  '^  The  Marble  Faunr     137 

"  The  young  man  started  at  the  word  which  he 
himself  had  spoken.  It  may  be  that  it  brought 
home  to  the  simplicity  of  his  imagination  Avhat  he 
had  not  before  dreamed  of,  —  the  ever  increasing 
loathsomeness  of  a  union  that  consists  in  guilt, 
cemented  with  blood,  which  would  corrupt  and 
grow  more  noisome  for  ever  and  for  ever,  but  bind 
them  none  the  less  strictly  for  that. 

''  They  turned  aside  for  the  sake  of  treading 
loftily  past  the  old  site  of  Pompey's  forum. 

"  '  There  was  a  great  deed  done  here,'  she  said, 
—  "a  deed  of  blood  like  ours.  Who  knows  but 
we  may  meet  the  high  and  ever  sad  fraternity  of 
Csesar's  murderers  ? ' 

"  'Are  they  our  brethren  now? '  said  Donatello. 

" '  Yes,  all  of  them,'  said  Miriam,  '  and  many 
another,  whom  the  world  little  dreams  of,  has  been 
made  our  brother  and  our  sister  by  what  we  have 
done  within  this  hour.' 

"At  the  thought  she  shivered.  Was  it  true, 
that  whatever  hand  had  a  blood-stain  on  it,  or  had 
poured  out  poison,  or  strangled  a  babe  at  its  birth, 
or  clutched  a  grandsire's  throat,  he  sleeping,  and 
robbed  him  of  his  few  last  breaths,  had  now  the 
right  to  offer  itself  in  fellowship  with  their  two 
hands?  Too  certainly  that  right  existed.  It  is 
a  terrible  thought  that  an  individual  wrong-doing 
melts  into  the  great  mass  of  human  crime,  and 
makes  us  —  who  dreamed  only  of  our  own  little 
separate  sin  —  makes  us  guilty  of  the  whole  !  Thus 
Miriam  and  her  lover  were  not  an  insulated  pair. 


138  My  Portfolio. 

but  members  of  an  innumerable  confraternity  of 
guilty  ones,  all  shuddering  at  each  other." 

These  are  but  few  of  the  master-touches  with 
which  genius  pictures  sin,  as  disclosed  in  the 
experience  of  human  souls.  Dramatic  tragedy, 
from  JEschylus  to  Shakspeare,  employs  the  same 
solemn  problems  of  destiny  and  decree  which 
give  to  the  Calvinistic  theology  its  deathless  sway 
over  the  human  mind.  Dr.  Holmes,  in  the  story 
of  "  Elsie  Venner,"  finds  it  necessary  to  the  truth- 
fulness of  fiction  to  interweave  unmistakable 
hints  of  the  old  doctrine  of  "  original  sin,"  or,  as 
we  prefer  to  call  it,  of  "  inherited  depravity,"  in  all 
its  fearfulness.  Not  otherwise  can  genius  keep 
literature  true  to  the  facts  of  life.  So  Hawthorne, 
in  "  The  Marble  Faun,"  with  no  theological  intent, 
but  aiming  only  to  paint  the  real  life  of  guilt,  as 
seen  and  felt  in  the  depths  of  souls,  puts  on  the 
canvas  with  like  vividness  the  biblical  and  Cal- 
vinistic idea  of  the  nature  of  sin  and  its  wrathful 
workings.  George  Eliot,  in  "  Middlemarch,"  does 
the  same,  and  the  firmament  of  criticism  is  ablaze 
with  admiration. 

Such,  then,  is  sin,  as  genius  finds  it  in  the  living 
world  of  men  and  women.  Is  it  a  reality,  or  a 
dream  ?  If  a  reality,  then  is  it  a  dream  that  sin 
deserves  the  eternal  anger  of  God,  and  that  the 
human  conscience  is  commissioned  of  God  to  say 
that?  If  a  reality,  then  is  it  a  dream  that  undy- 
ing guilt  must  become  an  "  undying  worm  "  ?  If 
a  reality,  then  is  it  a  dream  that  sin  needs  for  its 


The  Theology  of  "  The  Marble  Faun:'     139 

extinction  in  the  soul  the  regenerating  power  of 
the  Holy  Ghost?  If  a  reality,  then  is  it  a  dream 
that  sin  needs  for  its  forgiveness  an  atonement  by 
the  eternal  Son  of  God  ?  If  a  reality,  then  is 
that  whole  system  a  dream  which  men  have  de- 
nounced as  the  "  Blood  Theology  "  ?  Great  truths 
stand  or  fall  together.  The  whole  Calvinistic  sys- 
tem starts  with,  and  is  built  on,  the  facts  of  sin. 
What  that  is,  and  how  that  works,  give  character 
to  all  the  rest.  Which  of  us,  then,  are  the  wak- 
ing ones,  and  which  the  dreamers  ? 

Hawthorne  stands  confessedly  at  the  head  of 
our  American  literature  as  an  original  painter  of 
real  life.  The  most  accomplished  of  American 
critics,  one  whose  word  gives  law  to  our  literary 
judgments,  ranks  Hawthorne's  name  among  the 
first  five  on  the  roll  of  the  whole  literature  of  our 
language.  Which  horn  of  the  dilemma,  then, 
shall  we  be  tossed  on?  Is  the  biblical  notion  of 
sin  which  genius  finds  deep  in  the  experience  of 
souls,  and  paints  in  such  lines  of  lurid  fire,  the 
true  one?  Or  is  genius  itself  a  liar,  and  its  work 
a  cheat  for  fools  to  be  scared  at,  and  for  wise  men 
to  laugh  at  ?     Which  shall  it  be  ? 


XYI. 

THE  DEBT  OF  THE  NATION  TO  NEW  ENGLAND. 

It  is  comparatively  well  known  that  M.  De 
Tocqueville,  in  his  study  of  the  philosophy  of  our 
government,  found,  as  he  judged,  the  germinal 
idea  of  the  whole  structure  in  the  town-meeting 
of  New  England.  He  pronounced  it  the  corner- 
stone of  our  liberties.  That  principle  of  the  demo- 
cratic town-meeting  dates  back  to  the  very  infancy 
of  the  New-England  Colonies.  It  was  the  first 
experiment  of  common  sense  to  organize  govern- 
ment for  the  common  weal. 

It  is  not  so  generally  known  that  the  country 
owes  to  New  England  another  principle,  quite  as 
vital  as  that  of  the  town-meeting,  and  which  has 
become  a  part  of  the  organic  law  of  the  Federal 
Government,  and  of  every  State  Government  in 
the  Union.  It  is  the  principle  of  the  duality  of 
our  system  of  legislation.  The  plan  of  commit- 
ting legislative  authority  to  two  bodies,  instead  of 
one,  each  co-ordinate  with  the  other,  and  each 
having  the  power  of  veto  over  the  other,  is,  in  the 
American  form  of  it,  of  American  origin.  Tlie 
English  houses  of  Lords  and  Commons  are  not 

140 


The  Debt  of  the  Nation  to  New  England.     141 

paxallel,  because  one  represents  hereditary  author- 
ity, and  neither  is  fully  representative  of  popular 
choice.  We  have  extended  over  the  whole  land  a 
network  of  dual  legislation,  emanating  from  the 
popular  will.  The  principle  is  a  most  profound 
one  in  theory,  and  vital  to  national  existence  in 
its  working.  More  than  one  republic  has  perished 
for  the  want  of  it.  More  than  once  has  the  con- 
servative balance  which  it  creates  saved  our  own 
government  from  anarchy  in  crises  of  peril.  It 
creates  a  movable  weight  which  can  be  thrown 
into  either  scale,  —  that  of  Democracy,  or  that 
of  Federalism ;  that  of  popular  rights,  or  that  of 
central  power,  —  as  the  exigency  of  the  time  may 
require.  Many  times,  probably,  has  the  national 
Senate  saved  the  country  from  demagogism  in 
the  House  of  Representatives.  It  was  believed  by 
wise  men  at  Washington,  in  the  time  of  President 
Polk,  that  we  should  have  had  war  with  England, 
over  the  north-western  boundary,  but  for  the 
conservative  check  of  the  Senate  upon  the  hot 
legislation  of  the  House.  Through  all  the  great 
North-western  States  the  war-cry  ran  like  a  prai- 
rie-fire :  "  Fifty-four,  forty  —  or  fight !  " 

This  principle  of  duality,  like  that  of  the  town- 
meeting,  dates  also  far  back  to  the  very  birthday 
of  government  in  colonial  history.  The  occasion 
which  gave  rise  to  it  would  appear,  but  for  the 
gravity  of  the  results,  comically  diminutive. 
"  There  fell  out  a  great  business,"  writes  Gov. 
Winthrop,  "upon  a  very  small  occasion."     It  il- 


142  My  Portfolio, 

lustrates  signally  the  ways  of  Divine  Providence 
in  using  small  things  for  great  issues,  and  things 
despised,  for  ends  to  be  held  in  honor  through  all 
time.  A  very  striking  feature  in  the  character  of 
the  Puritans  was  their  cjuickness  to  accept  the 
divine  interpretation  of  small  things.  No  man 
was  more  far-sighted  in  this  respect  than  Gov. 
Winthrop.  His  was  the  guiding  hand  which  led 
the  colonists  to  the  adoption  of  the  dual  govern- 
ment. Yet  it  had  so  lowly  an  origin  as  a  suc- 
cession' of  pettifogging  lawsuits  and  churchly 
investigations  about  the  ownership  of  a  stray  pig. 
The  story  runs  thus  :  one  widow  Sherman  lost 
a  valuable  sow  in  Boston,  which  found  its  way 
upon  the  premises  of  a  Capt.  Keajuie.  The  cap- 
tain was  a  man  of  property  and  social  standing, 
but  in  somewhat  ill  repute  as  a  hard  man  in  his 
dealings.  He  summoned  the  town-crier  to  cry 
the  pig  in  what  is  now  the  thronged  thoroughfare 
of  Boston  commerce.  The  town-crier  cried  tlie 
pig  in  vain.  No  claimant  appeared  for  nearly  a 
year.  Meanwhile  the  captain,  as  he  affirmed, 
slaughtered  a  pig  of  his  own,  which  had  been 
domiciled  with  the  stray  sow.  By  and  by  the 
widow  Sherman  came  to  see  the  stray  one.  But 
the  tests  of  the  personal  identity  of  swine  are  not 
very  sure  ;  the  General  Court  had  not  passed  judg- 
ment upon  them,  and  the  widow  was  puzzled. 
Pigs  have  a  way  of  marvelous  change  in  a  few 
months  of  growth.  She  could  not  swear  to  the 
countenance  of  the  runaway  as  the  one  which  she 


The  Debt  of  the  Nation  to  New  England.     143 

had  known  in  its  infancy.  That  which  had  been 
"a  thing  of  beauty"  was  such  no  more.  The 
conscientious  widow  would  not  take  oath  that  it 
was  her  lost  pet.  But  the  captain  could  not  lay 
claim  to  more  than  one  pig  ;  and  she  hit  upon  a 
second  thought  which  was  ingenious,  if  not  in- 
genuous. She  declared,  through  some  clairvoyant 
intuition  of  her  own,  that  the  captain's  slaugh- 
tered pig,  which  she  had  never  seen,  was  hers.  She 
professed  to  believe  that  the  butcher  had  "stuck" 
the  wrong  victim. 

Things  were  becoming  mixed.  The  dispute  was 
brought,  after  the  manner  of  those  times,  before 
the  reverend  elders  of  the  First  Church  of  Boston 
for  adjudication.  Each  party  appeared,  and  told 
his  or  her  own  story.  The  elders,  after  due 
deliberation,  decided  that  the  widow's  claim  was 
"  not  proven,"  and  advised  her  to  go  about  her 
household  cares.  The  captain  was  exonerated, 
and  the  happy  possessor  of  two  pigs,  or  their 
equivalent,  one  of  which  was  confessedly  not  his. 
When  was  ever  the  owner  of  lost  pig  content 
under  such  conditions  ?  Widow  Sherman  at  any 
rate  was  not  to  be  thus  appeased.  She  brought 
her  case  to  trial  before  a  jury.  But  they  agreed 
with  the  elders,  and,  moreover,  were  so  ungallant 
as  to  vote  three  pounds  damages  to  the  captain, 
"to  pay  his  costs."  Thus  encouraged,  he  turned 
upon  the  widow  with  a  suit  for  defamation  of 
character;  she  having,  in  the  greatness  of  her 
wrath,  come  down  upon  him  with  the  charge  of 


144  My  Portfolio. 

theft.  "  He  stole  the  pig,  and  away  he  ran,"  said 
she.  She  was  worsted  in  the  second  suit.  The 
plaintiff  recovered  damages  to  the  tune  of  forty 
pounds, — a  sum,  perhaps,  not  much  less  in  value 
than  five  hundred  dollars  of  our  liquid  currency. 
When  did  suitor  for  the  recovery  of  a  stolen  pig 
sit  down  content  under  such  injustice  ?  She  ap- 
pealed to  the  Great  and  General  Court.  Things 
were  becoming  interesting.  Five  hundred  dollars 
for  a  runaway  sow,  and  the  honorable  Legislature 
of  Massachusetts  for  a  court  of  final  appeal ! 

This  brings  the  story  to  its  more  dignified  chap- 
ters. Up  to  that  time  the  Legislature  was  a  single 
body,  consisting  of  the  magistrates,  who,  by  offi- 
cial rank,  constituted  a  class  by  themselves,  and 
the  deputies,  who  were  the  chosen  representa- 
tives of  the  people ;  but  both  sat  together  in  one 
chamber,  and  voted  as  one  body.  The  illustrious 
pig  gave  occasion  to  a  grave  division  of  opinion. 
Capt.  Keayne  was,  for  the  times,  a  rich  man.  Mrs. 
Sherman  was  comparatively  poor,  and  a  widow 
withal.  The  local  prejudices  against  the  captain 
as  a  hard  man  came  into  play  also.  The  irrepres- 
sible conflict  between  the  rich  and  the  poor  raged 
through  the  Colony,  and  aggravated  the  causes  of 
dissension.  The  majority  of  the  magistrates  sided 
with  the  captain,  and  the  majority  of  the  deputies 
with  the  widow,  seven  not  voting.  If  a  full  vote 
could  have  been  had,  the  widow  would  have  had 
the  best  of  it. 

Under  these  conditions  the  magistrates,  as  they 


The  Debt  of  the  Nation  to  New  England.     145 

had  the  legal  right  to  do,  interposed  their  nega- 
tive upon  further  proceedings ;  so  that  the  case  as 
it  stood  legally  was  "  not  determined."  But  this 
left  the  uncomforted  widow  under  the  mulct  im- 
posed by  the  jury,  —  of  forty  pounds  to  be  paid  to 
the  exultant  captain.  He  had  the  equivalent  of 
two  pigs  besides,  and  the  widow  none.  "  Much 
contention  and  earnestness  there  was,"  writes  the 
calm,  conservative  governor,  and  well  there  might 
be.  The  losing  party,  involving  through  sym- 
pathy, by  this  time,  a  very  respectable  following 
of  the  widow,  charged  that  the  poor  had  been 
oppressed  out  of  deference  to  the  rich.  Many 
"spoke  unreverently  of  the  court."  Especially 
did  the  magistrates  come  in  for  their  full  share  of 
opprobrium,  because  it  was  their  negative  which 
had  left  the  widow  under  damages  in  her  suit.  It 
was  charged  that  they  had  "  turned  aside  the  poor 
in  the  gate."  Seven  days  were  consumed  in  debate, 
and  the  case  came  again  before  the  elders  of  the 
church,  who  found  no  relief  for  widow  Sherman, 
but  sustained  the  magistrates  in  their  negative. 
It  was  an  obvious  case  of  conflict  between  the 
clear-headed  intelligence  on  the  one  side  and  the 
heated  sympathies  and  prejudices  of  the  people  on 
the  other. 

The  consequence  was,  that  all  parties  began  to 
revise  tlieir  opinions  as  to  the  fundamental  struc- 
ture of  the  Legislature,  especially  as  it  concerned 
the  relations  of  the  two  classes  in  it  to  each  other. 
Gov.  Winthrop,  whose  remarkable  wisdom  piloted 


146  My  Portfolio. 

the  infant  Colony  through  graver  troubles  than 
this,  interposed  his  private  counsel  to  Capt. 
Keayne,  and  persuaded  him  to  return  to  widow 
Sherman  a  part  of  the  forty  pounds  which  she 
had  paid  him  under  stress  of  law.  With  this  she 
was  compelled  to  be  content,  and  the  famous  pig 
retired  from  the  history  of  the  world.  Not  so, 
however,  the  grave  question  which  had  been 
started  about  the  construction  of  the  legislative 
body.  The  people  saw,  or  thought  they  saw,  that 
the  negative  of  the  magistrates  gave  to  a  few 
individuals  a  power  dangerous  to  Republican  lib- 
erty. Gov.  Winthrop  saw  the  gravity  of  the  issue, 
and  improved  wisely  the  opportunity  to  bring 
about  a  change  in  the  organic  law  of  legislative 
authority.  He  procured  a  reference  of  the  ques- 
tion to  the  reverend  elders  for  advice  to  the  next 
General  Court.  This  was  a  ruse  to  gain  time, 
''that  so  the  people's  heat  might  be  abated;  for 
then  he  knew  that  they  would  hear  reason." 
Time  passed  on,  the  "  people's  heat "  was  abated ; 
and  when  the  court  assembled,  and  heard  the  re- 
port of  the  elders,  the  people  "  did  hear  reason." 
Before  the  court  adjourned,  the  upshot  of  the 
matter  was,  that  two  legislative  bodies  were  organ- 
ized,—  the  magistrates  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
deputies  on  the  other.  To  each  was  assigned  a 
chamber  of  its  own.  Each  received  the  power  of 
negative  over  the  action  of  the  other ;  that  is, 
the  action  of  two  bodies  was  made  necessary  to 
legal  legislation.     That  was  the  beginning  of  our 


The  Debt  of  the  Nation  to  New  England.     147 

present  State  Senate  and  House  of  Representa- 
tives. It  was  the  first  experiment  of  dual  legisla- 
tion on  this  continent. 

JNIore  than  a  century  later,  in  the  great  debates 
on  the  formation  of  the  Federal  Union,  John  Adams 
took  a  leaf  from  the  earl}^  history  of  Massachusetts. 
He  defended  the  dual  principle  of  legislation 
against  the  reasonings  of  Turgot,  which  were  ad- 
vanced and  approved  by  Dr.  Franklin.  Adams 
was  successful.  He  secured  the  introduction  of 
the  principle  into  the  organic  law  of  the  United- 
States  government,  from  thence  it  has  been  ex- 
tended to  every  one  of  these  States  in  the  structure 
of  its  State  Legislature.  "  Tall  oaks  from  little 
acorns  grow."  The  loss  of  a  screw-driver  delayed 
the  arrival  of  a  part  of  Gen.  Pakenham's  artillery  I 
at  the  battle  of  New  Orleans  in  1814,  and  in  conse- 
quence he  lost  the  battle  and  his  life.  A  greater 
issue  was  impending  in  the  loss  of  widow  Sher- 
man's pig.  A  secret  providence  guided  the  actors 
in  this  episode  of  colonial  history,  till  their  dimin- 
utive plans  encompassed  the  liberties  of  a  nation. 
It  is  not  the  first  time  that  God  has  employed  the 
pig-headedness  of  both  man  and  beast  to  bring 
about  incalculable  designs  of  his  own. 

The  story  illustrates,  also,  another  principle  in 
the  ways  of  God.  It  is,  that  the  costs  of  great 
things  to  the  instruments  employed  are  to  be  esti- 
mated, not  in  view  of  the  littleness  of  causes  and 
occasions,  but  in  view  of  the  magnitude  of  results. 
It  seems  ludicrously  disproportionate,  that  a  stray 


148  My  Portfolio. 

pig  should  convulse  a  colony  of  grave  and  earnest 
men  who  were  here  for  a  great  destiny.  It  makes 
one  laugh  at  dignified  governors  and  sedate  depu- 
ties, and  reverend  divines,  to  see  them  contending 
for  months,  and  debating  seven  days  at  a  stretch, 
and  interspersing  solemn  prayer,  to  settle  a  petty 
quarrel  of  the  farmyard.  Had  they  crossed  the 
ocean,  and  braved  the  wilderness  and  the  savage, 
for  no  better  business  than  this?  But  turn  the 
story  end  for  end.  Read  it  backward.  Look  at 
the  immensity  of  the  results  to  come  from  it.  See 
a  great  nation  set  upon  the  trail  of  a  grand  politi- 
cal discovery ;  the  evolution  of  a  principle  which 
was  to  consolidate  a  nation's  freedom  ;  fifty  sover- 
eign States  awaiting,  before  coming  to  their  birth, 
their  security  from  anarchic  revolutions  ;  a  federal 
union  to  be  made  possible  over  a  continent  which 
was  to  become  the  home  of  unborn  millions; 
and  all  the  glowing  possibilities  of  good  to  the 
tribes  of  the  whole  earth  contingent  on  the  suc- 
cess of  one ! 

Under  that  law  of  providence  by  which  great 
good  always  involves  great  costs,  it  was  fitting 
that  such  results  as  these  should  come  about  with 
costs  of  vexation  and  struggle,  and  great  ado,  to 
the  actors  and  instruments  stationed  back  at  the 
beginning  of  things.  It  was  becoming  that  grave 
legislators  should  sit  in  troubled  conclave,  and 
that  reverend  ministers  should  join  in  solemn 
prayer,  and  that  the  whole  body  politic  should  be 
stirred  up  in  wrathful  debate,  when  such  a  grand 


The  Debt  of  the  Nation  to  New  England.     149 

morning  was  about  to  dawn  on  the  world.  So  is 
it  with  all  the  more  fearful  costs  of  great  things  in 
toil  and  suffering,  and  throes  of  death.  They  are 
to  be  estimated  by  the  magnitude  of  God's  ends, 
not  by  the  pettiness  of  man's  beginnings.  We 
have  asked  in  dumb  horror  for  the  reason  why  one 
bullet,  from  the  hand  of  the  one  most  despicable 
of  mankind,  should  be  permitted  to  end  a  great  life 
in  agony,  and  plunge  a  nation  into  grief.  Wait 
and  watch.  The  end  is  not  yet.  We  shall  by  and 
by  see  some  good  coming  from  the  event  which 
shall  be  commensurate  with  such  cost ;  some  great 
blessing  gained,  or  some  great  tragedy  escaped, 
which  shall  seem  to  be  worth  even  the  loss  of  such 
a  life  by  such  a  death.  There  never  was  and 
never  will  be  an  hour  of  wasted  suffering  in  this 
world. 


XYII. 

OUGHT  THE  PULPIT  TO  IGNOKE  SPIEITUALISM  ? 

No,  and  for  the  following  reasons ;  viz.,  — 
1.  It  is  an  extensive  and  still  growing  delusion. 
This  is  not  so  obvious  in  Eastern  cities  as  in 
the  country  towns  and  at  the  West.  Up  among  the 
hills  of  New  Hampshire  and  Vermont,  and  in  the 
interior  counties  of  Maine,  it  is  found  sometimes 
in  such  strength  as  to  be  a  very  positive  drawback 
to  churchly  influence  and  the  growth  of  general 
culture.  Where  the  resources  of  social  excitement 
are  few,  the  home  of  a  clairvoyant  often  attracts 
more  interest  than  the  lyceum  lecture  or  the  ser- 
mon. Where  churches  are  declining  through  de- 
crease of  population,  there  spiritualism  is  often 
rife.  It  seems  to  be  german  both  to  a  decaying 
and  an  unorganized  state  of  society.  Wherever, 
for  any  reason,  more  healthy  causes  of  excitement 
do  not  exist,  this  diseased  and  effeminate  develop- 
ment of  popular  credulity  takes  their  place.  Home 
missionaries  find  it  one  of  the  most  insolent  forms 
of  infidelity  in  the  North-western  States  and  on 
the  frontiers  of  civilization.  In  some  towns  it 
claims  to  be  the  only  form  of  religious  faith  that 

150 


Ought  the  Pulpit  to  ignore  Spiritualism  ?     151 

has  organic  life.  Wherever  French  and  German 
communism  takes  root,  the  same  soil  gives  nutri- 
ment to  this  opposite,  but  not  contrary,  super- 
naturalism.  The  old  story  is  often  repeated  in 
coalitions  of  opposite  schools  of  infidelity  against 
the  church  of  Christ,  —  Herod  and  Pilate  are 
made  friends  together. 

True,  the  claims  of  spiritualists  as  to  the  growth 
of  the  sect  must  be  taken  with  large  allowance. 
They  have  a  comfortable  way  of  laying  claim  to 
all  those  who  admit  the  historic  reality  of  the  phe- 
nomena on  which  their  faith  is  founded,  and  even 
all  who  inquire  into  them  for  the  entertainment  of 
idle  hours.  Thus,  Gen.  Banks,  the  Hon.  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,  President  Lincoln,  Lord  Brougham, 
Queen  Victoria,  Napoleon  HI.,  and,  as  one  spirit- 
ualist expressed  it,  "  half  the  crowned  heads  in 
Europe,"  have  been  claimed  as  "  believers."  Dr. 
Nichols  of  Haverhill  understands  them  to  claim 
three  millions  in  this  country  and  six  millions  in 
Europe.  Nine  millions  for  a  sect  which  has  yet 
to  celebrate  its  first  semi-centennial !  Where  is 
Gen.  Walker  of  the  Census  Bureau  ?  Such  elas- 
ticity of  reckoning  is  of  course  preposterous.  But, 
making  heavy  deductions  from  it,  the  residuum 
is  still  painfully  large.  A  single  fact  gives,  per- 
haps, the  most  accurate  hint  of  the  reality :  it  is, 
that  the  leading  organ  of  the  sect  in  this  country 
is  said  to  have  a  circulation  of  a  hundred  thousand 
copies  ;  and,  .so  far  as  I  know,  the  claim  is  not  dis- 


152  My  Portfolio. 

2.  It  is  a  seductive  form  of  error  to  several 
classes  of  minds  in  all  communities.  Idle  minds  — 
an  increasing  class  in  prosperous  times  —  find  in 
it  entertainment  when  time  hangs  heavy.  Those 
who  are  fond  of  the  marvelous,  and  who  crave  a 
glimpse  of  the  unseen  world,  find  a  feast  at  the 
spiritualistic  seance.  The  same  causes  which  lead 
the  ignorant,  and  many,  also,  who  would  resent 
that  epithet,  to  the  gypsy-camp  or  the  hut  of  an 
Indian  fortune-teller,  give  to  the  clairvoyant  phe- 
nomena a  lurid  interest  which  captivates  many,  to 
their  lifelong  hurt.  The  naturally  credulous  and 
superstitious  are  a  large  proportion  of  any  commu- 
nity. Those  who  have  been  bereaved  of  friends, 
also,  in  their  mental  weakness  welcome  any  thing 
that  promises  to  them  communion  with  the  de- 
parted. It  is  marvelous  on  what  scanty  evidence 
these  will  yield  tearful  faith  to  the  revelations  of 
the  spiritualistic  seer.  Proof  on  which  they  would 
not  risk  the  ownership  of  a  horse  is  accepted  as 
adequate  evidence  that  the  world  of  spirits  is  wide 
open  to  their  gaze,  and  even  that  they  join  hands 
again  consciously  and  palpably  with  the  loved  and 
lost. 

The  fact  deserves  notice,  also,  that,  in  modern 
and  Western  nations,  this  depraved  type  of  super- 
naturalism  is  almost  all  that  Christian  civilization 
has  left  intact  that  can  take  the  place  of  Oriental 
magic  and  European  astrology  in  ministering  to 
certain  tastes  which  are  deep-seated  and  perma- 
nent in  human  nature.     The  old  allurements  to 


Ought  the  Pulpit  to  ignore  Spiritualism  ?     153 

those  tastes  have  disappeared ;  but  the  tastes 
themselves  remain,  and  will  have  something  to 
feed  upon.  In  all  the  past  ages  they  have  dis- 
closed a  grim  tendency  to  demonism,  even  to  the 
extreme  of  devil-worship.  Why  should  we  not 
expect  them  to  thrive  upon  the  food  which  spir- 
itualism generates,  specially  in  its  swampy  and 
malarial  low  grounds  ? 

Another  large  class  whom  this  error  allures 
consists  of  those  who  have  long  starved  their  moral 
sensibilities  by  one  form  or  another  of  religious 
negations.  These  often  spring,  with  a  rebound, 
to  an}^  form  of  supernaturalism  which  the  age  fur- 
nishes. The  supernatural  in  some  form  the  human 
mind  will  have.  Human  nature  craves  it  as  the 
normal  food  of  its  sensibilities.  Those  who  have 
most  stoutly  resisted  faith  in  biblical  miracles,  and 
Hebrew  prophecies,  and  apostolic  inspiration,  are 
often  the  first  to  succumb  to  this  modern  necro- 
mancy. They  sometimes  mingle  in  a  strange 
medley  the  spiritualistic  vagaries  with  some  sort 
of  reproduction  of  the  biblical  teachings. 

The  late  Professor  Hare  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania  lived  through  the  best  years  of  his 
life  an  atheist.  Of  the  human  soul  and  its  immor- 
tality he  used  to  say,  "  I  know  man :  I  have  had 
him  in  my  laboratory  full  grown ;  and  I  have  re- 
duced all  there  is  of  him  to  a  gas.  I  know  that 
that  is  all.  I  have  the  evidence  of  my  own  eyes 
for  it.  If  carbonic  acid  gas  is  immortal,  man  is 
immortal."     But  no  sooner  did  he  carry  his  hide- 


154  My  Portfolio. 

ous  faith  to  the  sSance  of  a  "  medium  "  than  the 
atheism  of  a  lifetime  gave  way,  and  he  affirmed, 
with  equal  confidence,  "I  hioiv  there  is  another 
life  than  this:  I  know  there  is  a  soul  which  is 
not  a  gas.  I  have  talked  with  my  father,  my 
mother,  my  sister,  in  another  world :  I  have  the 
evidence  of  my  own  ears  for  it."  So,  between  the 
learned  chemist's  eyes  and  ears,  it  should  seem 
that  a  change  for  the  better,  so  far  as  it  went, 
had  taken  place.  But  did  his  mind  admit,  in  con- 
sequence of  its  clairvoyant  enlightenment,  any 
healthy  faith  in  the  Christian  religion?  Not  at 
all.  It  was  only  the  rebound  of  a  starving  mind 
from  the  grossest  materialism  to  the  grossest  super- 
naturalism.  He  once  grasped  the  electrical  ma- 
chine in  the  office  of  a  clairvoyant,  and,  jerking  it 
back  and  forth,  angrily  demanded  that  Jesus  Christ 
should  come  in  person  to  instruct  him  respect- 
ing the  unseen  world  and  his  own  destiny  there. 
Even  the  necromancer  shrunk  back,  appalled  at 
the  profaneness  of  the  converted  atheist.  So,  said 
one  like-minded,  of  a  former  age,  "  If  thou  be  the 
Christ,  save  thyself  and  us."  Dr.  Hare  represents 
a  class  of  minds  whose  natural  but  stifled  cravings 
for  the  supernatural  drive  them  to  almost  any  and 
every  form  of  it  which  does  not  lay  upon  them 
the  restraints  of  a  spiritual  religion. 

3.  The  popular  faith  in  the  supernaturalism  of 
the  Bible  is  passing  through  a  transition  which 
exposes  it  to  special  peril  from  such  a  type  of  error 
as  that  of  spiritualism.     This  is  saying  only  that 


Ought  the  Pulpit  to  ignore  Spiritualism?     155 

whicli  is  known  and  read  of  all  men.  We  live  in 
an  age  of  silent  revolution :  it  is  trying  severely 
the  Christian  faith  of  many.  Skepticism  is  tric- 
kling down  through  crevices,  from  the  heights  of 
literary  and  scientific  culture,  to  the  social  strata 
below.  The  people  who  compose  our  churches 
are  not  so  well  indoctrinated  as  their  fathers  were 
in  the  fundamentals  of  their  faith.  Fewer  Chris- 
tian men  and  women  than  formerly  can  give  a 
reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  them.  I  remember 
hearing  the  Rev.  William  M.  Rogers,  then  pastor 
of  the  Central  Church,  Boston,  say,  thirty  years 
ago,  that  there  were  men  and  women  in  his  church 
who  had  read  more  theology  than  he  had.  Proba- 
bly it  was  true.  Could  a  similar  statement  be 
truthfully  made  now  respecting  that  church  and 
its  pastor  ?  Many  most  excellent  Christians,  the 
superiors,  it  may  be,  in  some  other  respects,  to 
their  fathers,  in  this  respect  of  theologic  knowl- 
edge are  living  largely  upon  their  heritage  from 
a  more  stalwart  age.  Their  faith  is  not  so  well 
defined  as  that  of  the  fathers :  it  is  held  with 
vague  hints  of  drawbacks  and  qualifications  which 
are  the  more  hurtful  for  their  vagueness.  Their 
shadows  loom  up  large  in  the  twilight. 

The  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  for  example, 
was  once  held  in  the  bald  and  simple  form  of 
"  verbal  "  dictation.  Whatever  were  the  defects 
of  that  type  of  belief,  it  had  this  merit,  —  that  it 
was  definite.  It  was  easily  expressed,  and  easily 
applied ;    and   its    authority    was    unquestioned. 


156  My  Portfolio. 

Theological  science  has  changed  all  that.  But,  if 
wiser  forms  of  faith  in  inspiration  have  sprung  up, 
they  have  not  yet  taken  possession  of  the  popular 
mind  with  any  tiling  like  the  vigorous  grasp  with 
which  the  theory  of  verbal  inspiration  held  the 
unquestioning  faith  of  a  former  generation.  This 
period  of  transition  may  end  in  a  firmer,  because 
a  more  enlightened  and  self-consistent,  belief;  but, 
while  the  transition  lasts,  it  is  a  period  of  peril  to 
the  faith  of  multitudes.  Many  are  not  qualified 
to  say  wherein  lies  the  difference  between  the  vis- 
ion of  St.  Paul,  when  he  was  "  caught  up  to  the 
third  heaven,"  and  the  vision  of  the  spiritual  seer 
of  to-day,  who  claims  the  same  illumination  from 
the  same  altitude.  Who  shall  instruct  the  people 
in  this  thing  if  the  pulpit  does  not  ? 

4.  The  failure  of  natural  science  to  give  a 
prompt  and  thorough  solution  of  the  mysteries  of 
spiritualism  lays  a  special  responsibility  on  the 
pulpit.  Some  disturbances  of  the  popular  faith 
may  now  be  safely  let  alone,  because  popular  sci- 
ence has  so  satisfactorily  restored  the  broken 
equipoise.  Science  has  solved  whatever  of  mys- 
tery there  was  about  them,  and  all  men  of  average 
intelligence  know  the  fact.  Time  was,  when  the 
faith  of  many  trembled  at  the  discovery  that  the 
earth  is  more  than  six  thousand  years  old,  though 
the  Scriptures,  as  read  for  ages  by  the  learned  and 
ignorant  alike,  had  declared  the  contrary.  Philo- 
logical science  has  joined  hands  with  natural  sci- 
ence   in   explaining   that    contradiction    so   that 


Ought  the  Pulpit  to  ignore  Spiritualism  ?     157 

nobody's  faith  is  disturbed  by  it  now.  But  the 
like  is  not  true  of  the  phenomena  of  spiritualism. 
Nothing  else  in  scientific  histor}^  has  so  perplexed 
scientific  authorities  as  this  has  done.  Even  the 
simple  form  of  it  called  "planchette"  has  been 
well  denominated  the  "  despair  of  science."  The 
notion  of  secret  wires  and  invisible  hairs,  by  which 
wise  men  once  thought  to  explain  these  phe- 
nomena, will  not  do  now.  Men  of  sense  know 
better.  They  know  what  they  see  with  their  own 
eyes,  and  hear  with  their  own  ears.  To  the  com- 
mon sense  of  common  men,  "  unconscious  cerebra- 
tion "  is  not  much  better.  "  Psychic  force  "  shares 
the  same  fate.  These  are  but  names  of  things 
which  remain  as  profound  mysteries  as  before. 
Science  has  only  given  us  high-sounding  titles 
for  them.  They  are  too  ethereal  to  explain  to 
the  average  intelligence  the  facts  witnessed  by  a 
thousand  eyes.  After  all  the  deductions  from  the 
phenomena  which  collusion  and  jugglery  and  elec- 
tricity, and  "  nervous  fluid,"  and  "  psychic  force," 
and  "  unconscious  cerebration,"  —  even  admitting 
these  last  to  be  more  than  names,  —  can  account 
for,  there  remains  a  residuum  which  nothing  ac- 
counts for  on  any  principle  of  science  which  can 
be  made  clear  to  popular  comprehension.  Honest 
scientists  admit  this.  When  confronted  with  this 
residuum  of  unexplained  myster}^,  they  are  dumb, 
or  they  say  frankly,  "  We  do  not  know." 

This   inability   of   science    to    answer   popular 
inquiry  on   the  subject   in  any  way  which  com- 


158  My  Portfolio. 

mends  itself  to  the  common  sense  of  men,  is  a  fact 
of  great  significance  to  the  pulpit.  It  suggests  the 
query,  Who  shall  give  answer  to  the  popular  in- 
quiry ?  As  a  mere  matter  of  science,  it  can  await 
the  wisdom  of  the  future ;  but,  as  a  question 
affecting  the  religious  faith  of  many,  it  can  not 
wait.  The  people  find  this  nondescript  thing  in 
the  midst  of  them,  and  they  reasonbly  ask  solemn 
questions  about  it.  It  profanely  puts  on  the  sem- 
blance of  religion.  Men  and  women  are  trusting 
to  it  their  hopes  of  heaven.  It  tries  to  take  them 
by  the  hand,  and  give  them  comforting  words  in 
affliction.  With  one  hand  it  seems  to  lay  hold  on 
the  nether  world,  and  to  let  loose  vapors  that 
smell  of  fire  and  brimstone  ;  and  with  the  other 
it  seems  to  open  wide  the  gates  of  heaven,  on 
more  than  "  golden  hinges  turning."  The  people's 
faith  is  set  agape  by  its  vagaries.  They  reasona- 
bly ask,  "  What  shall  we  believe  ?  What  not 
believe?  And  why?"  Because  science  is  mute, 
they  turn  to  their  religious  teachers ;  and  to  whom 
else  can  they  turn  ? 

5.  Once  more :  the  fact  that  the  Scriptures  are 
not  silent  on  the  subject  of  necromancy  is  a  fact 
of  some  significance  to  the  pulpit.  The  people 
find  in  the  Old  Testament  perplexing  texts  about 
witchcraft,  about  those  who  have  "familiar  spir- 
its," about  "wizards  that  peep  and  mutter." 
Their  children  read  the  story  of  the  witch  of 
Endor;  and  bright  ones  among  them  do  not  fail 
to  recognize  in  the  raising  of  Samuel  an  occur- 


Ought  the  Pulpit  to  ignore  Spiritualism  ?     159 

rence  very  like  to  what  they  have  heard  around 
the  fireside,  with  large  eyes  and  bated  breath,  of 
the  doings  of  clairvoyants  ;  and  they  ask  their 
fathers,  and  the  fathers  ask  their  ministers,  what 
it  all  means.  They  want  to  know  whether  there 
is  any  difference  between  the  ancient  and  the 
modern  mystery.  Inquiry  on  the  subject  seems 
to  have  the  biblical  sanction.  To  name  the 
Salem  witchcraft,  with  its  uncanny  associations, 
does  not  now  put  an  end  to  the  inquiry.  Tower 
Hill  rather  complicates  the  matter  in  the  modern 
thought. 

Turning,  then,  to  the  New  Testament,  the  peo- 
ple read  of  demoniacal  possessions,  and  of  minis- 
tering spirits,  and  of  guardian  angels,  and  the 
prophecy  that  in  the  last  days  there  shall  be  signs 
and  wonders  of  evil  purport,  which  shall,  if  pos- 
sible, deceive  God's  elect.  They  ask  what  these 
things  mean,  and  the  question  is  not  unreasonable. 
When  spiritualistic  lecturers  boldly  claim  that 
apostolic  inspiration  was  no  more  than  one  form 
of  clairvoyance,  and  that  ministering  spirits  are 
departed  souls  from  this  world,  and  that  Jesus 
Christ  was  only  the  Prince  of  mediums,  the  peo- 
ple can  not  say  nay,  and  give  a  good  reason  for  it. 

There  is,  and  there  has  been  through  all  history, 
a  world  of  the  marvelous,  bordering  hard  on  the 
world  of  spirits,  which  the  Bible  does  not  ignore. 
It  has  somewhat  to  say  of  that  world  in  limbo, 
almost  from  its  earliest  to  its  latest  revelations. 
Inspiration  does  not  retire  it  to  the  cloud-land  of 


160  My  Portfolio. 

an  "if,"  and  leave  it  there.  When  people  find 
in  their  homes  and  neighborhoods  things  which 
inevitably  i^emind  them  of  these  biblical  scraps  of 
mysterious  history  and  prophecy,  and  specially 
when  they  find  their  inherited  faith  in  miracles 
and  in  inspiration  muddled  by  the  modern  necro- 
mantic marvels,  it  is  natural,  it  is  reasonable,  that 
they  should  ask,  "  What  do  these  things  mean  ?  " 
And,  so  long  as  popular  science  says  never  a  word, 
who  shall  give  to  the  people  the  necessary  satis- 
faction, if  the  pulpit  does  not  ?  Has  not  this  thing 
been  let  alone  long  enough  ?  Is  it  not  time  that 
the  clergy  should  have  opinions  about  it,  which,  as 
theologians,  they  are  willing  to  be  responsible  for, 
and  opinions  which  shall  commend  themselves  to 
the  good  sense  and  the  biblical  faith  of  their 
hearers  ?  It  can  never  be  beneath  the  dignity 
of  the  pulpit  to  answer  any  inquiries  touching 
religious  faith  which  an  honest  and  sensible  peo- 
ple are  moved  to  ask. 


XVIII. 

HOW  SHALL  THE  PULPIT  TKEAT  SPIKITUALISM  ? 

Starting  on  the  most  general  and  assured 
ground  of  belief  respecting  this  delusion,  may  not 
much  be  accomplished  by  simply  exposing  the  irre- 
ligious drift  of  it  as  seen  in  its  oivn  records  ?  Some- 
thing is  gained,  if  we  can  show  to  the  satisfaction 
of  thinking  men  that  this  thing  is  not  religion. 
Whatever  else  it  is,  it  is  nothing  that  commends 
itself  to  the  religious  instincts  of  men.  It  has 
neither  the  self-consistency,  nor  the  dignity,  of  a 
revelation  from  Heaven.  The  profaneness  of 
many  of  its  teachings  is  patent  on  a  very  brief 
examination  of  its  organs.  Granted  that  it  says 
many  true  things  and  good,  it  has  no  more  of 
these  than  a  religious  delusion  must  have  to  be 
attractive  to  believers. 

"  Oftentimes,  to  win  us  to  our  harm, 
The  instruments  of  darkness  tell  us  truths." 

Meanwhile,  the  vile  things  and  false  which  are 
its  practical  outcome  are  sufficient  to  discredit 
the  whole  as  a  system  of  religion.  God  does  not 
thus  contradict  himself. 

161 


162  My  Portfolio. 

No  matter  what  we  may  believe,  if  any  thing, 
about  the  origin  of  these  phenomena,  the  drift 
of  the  whole  is  wrong  morally.  This  can  be  made 
obvious  to  the  Christian  conscience.  As  a  se- 
quence, Christian  people  can  be  convinced  that 
they  should  have  no  part  nor  lot  in  the  matter. 
If  their  Christian  faith  is  true,  spiritualism  as  a 
religion  is  false.  The  necromantic  seance,  then, 
is  no  place  for  a  professed  friend  of  Christ.  Tam- 
pering with  the  thing  from  motives  of  curiosity 
is  not  only  an  evil,  it  is  a  sin.  The  curiosity 
itself  which  leads  men  to  seek  from  such  sources 
a  knowledge  of  the  invisible  world,  is  itself  a  sin. 
The  delicacy  of  a  Christian  conscience  can  not  but 
be  blurred  by  such  communion.  "  This  genera- 
tion seeketh  after  a  sign,"  said  the  Master  to  "  a 
generation  of  vipers." 

The  pulpit  achieves  much,  if  it  teaches  this 
effectually.  Much  to  the  purpose  is  gained,  if  we 
can  cut  this  evil  adrift  from  Christian  support. 
No  other  support  of  it  can  give  it  a  respectable 
prestige  among  the  religions  of  the  age.  Make 
the  Church  a  unit  against  it,  and  it  can  live  only 
as  one  of  the  religious  monstrosities  of  the  times, 
which,  like  Mormonism,  do  not  carry  weight 
enough  to  make  them  respectable.  No  body  of 
men  can  long  hold  up  in  broad  daylight  a  thing 
which  the  judgment  of  the  Christian  Church  has 
put  under  ban.  That  thing  must  become  offensive 
to  the  moral  sense  of  men.     It  must  rot. 

In  the  days  of  the  old  antislavery  controversy, 


How  shall  the  Pulpit  treat  Spiritualism  ?     1C3 

Albert  Barnes  used  to  say  to  the  representatives 
of  three  millions  of  slave-property  in  the  broad 
aisle  of  his  church,  "Rid  the  American  Church 
of  all  complicity  with  American  slavery,  and  the 
thing  is  doomed."  The  representatives  of  the 
three  millions  knew  it  to  be  true,  and  they  were 
silent.  The  principle  is  more  forcibly  true  of  any 
thing  which  assumes  to  be  a  revelation  from 
Heaven,  and  yet  from  which  the  moral  sense  of 
the  Church  revolts.  Christianity  has  gained  such 
dominion  over  public  sentiment,  that  no  other 
religion^  at  least,  can  stand  against  it.  May  we 
not,  then,  preach  so  much  as  is  here  indicated,  even 
without  knowing  much,  or  believing  much,  respect- 
ing the  power  which  works  the  spiritualistic  mar- 
vels ? 

May  not  still  more  be  accomplished  by  a  thor- 
ough re-discussion  in  the  pulpit  of  the  teachings  of 
the  Bible  on  the  subject  of  ancient  magic?  Here  is 
a  point,  I  think,  at  which  we  have  slipped.  The 
popular  recoil  from  the  Salem  witchcraft,  and 
from  the  tragedies  to  which  it  led,  and  from  the 
diathesis  of  the  age  which  made  those  tragedies 
j)ossible,  has  thrown  us  all  back  a  long  way  behind 
the  plain  teachings  of  the  Scriptures  on  the  whole 
class  of  subjects  to  which  this  belongs.  We  have 
come  to  think  of  them  as  things  to  be  put  down 
with  a  laugh,  or  ignored  with  a  smile  of  contempt. 
But  they  do  not  go  down  at  such  bidding.  Every 
age  resuscitates  them  in  one  form  or  another.  So 
has  it  been  from  the  beginjiing.     Heathen  history 


164  My  Portfolio, 

is  full  of  them.  Such  is  the  craving  of  the  human 
mincl  for  the  supernatural,  that,  if  you  laugh  it 
out  of  faith  in  one  form,  it  will  gravely  slide  into 
another  form,  with  only  difference  enough  to  dis- 
guise its  identity.  Live  it  will,  even  though  it 
beg  its  way  into  a  herd  of  swine. 

I  attribute  the  growth  of  spiritualism  largely  to 
a  re-action  of  this  kind.  Tower  Hill  in  Salem  has 
frightened  men  out  of  their  mental  equipose  about 
these  things.  Not  content  with  denying  false 
things,  we  have  swung  over  to  the  extreme  of 
denying  every  thing.  We  have  denied  facts 
supported  by  human  testimony  of  such  weight 
that  it  would  send  the  best  of  us  to  the  scaffold, 
if  arrayed  against  us  in  a  trial  for  murder.  We 
have  taught  the  world,  or  allowed  it  to  be  taught, 
that,  if  any  thing  presumes  to  be  done  by  super- 
human agency,  that  presumption  stamps  it  as  a 
cheat.  Have  we  not,  on  this  class  of  topics,  unwit- 
tingly committed  the  very  error  which  we  charge 
upon  the  skeptic  who  affirms  that  a  miracle  is  per 
se  an  absurdity  ?  The  natural  re-action  from  this 
policy  of  faithlessness  in  the  superhuman  is  this 
wretched  travesty  of  the  supernatural  which  spir- 
itualism would  substitute  for  Christianity. 

What,  then,  shall  we  do  to  remedy  the  mistake  ? 
I  answer,  for  one  thing,  acknowledge  the  mistake. 
Then,  go  back  to  the  biblical  methods  of  treating 
necromancy.  Learn  what  those  methods  are,  and 
teach  them  to  the  people.  The  Bible  does  not 
dismiss  the  heathen  magic  with  a  laugh  or  a  sneer. 


How  shall  the  Pulpit  treat  Spiritualism  ?     1G5 

It  does  not  ignore  the  thing  as  too  insignificant  or 
too  low  for  the  dignity  of  inspiration.  It  does  not 
leave  it  enveloped  in  the  cloud-land  of  hypothesis. 
On  the  contrary,  the  Scriptures  treat  it  as  a  fact 
in  human  history.  They  discuss  it  as  a  significant 
development  of  idolatry.  They  forbid  dalliance 
with  it  as  a  sin.  The  practice  of  it  the  Mosaic 
law  punished  as  a  capital  crime.  The  great  reli- 
gious reformations  on  record  in  the  Old  Testament 
began  with  ridding  the  land  of  those  who  dealt 
with  familiar  spirits.  All  down  the  ages,  from 
Moses  to  St.  Paul,  the  Bible  thunders  with  denun- 
ciations of  it  as  a  form  of  devil-worship.  When 
aged  Christians  of  the  last  generation  in  the  Sand- 
wich Islands  first  heard  of  American  spiritualism, 
they  detected  instantly  its  identity  with  their  own 
former  worship  of  evil  spirits.  They  marveled 
that  American  Christians  could  tamper  with  it 
in  the  face  of  the  biblical  warnings  against  it. 
I  repeat,  therefore,  teach  the  people  the  biblical 
treatment  of  necromancy.  Show  them  the  points 
of  resemblance  between  its  ancient  and  its  mod- 
ern forms.  We  may  reasonably  look  for  the  same 
recoil  of  the  Christian  conscience  from  it  that 
was  witnessed  in  the  churches  of  the  Hawaiian 
Islands.  Very  much  is  gained  if  we  can  thus 
bring  the  thing  under  fire  from  the  battery  of 
biblical  history. 

May  we  not  wisely  advance  our  mine  still  farther 
and  deeper  under  the  foundations  of  the  delusion 
by  resuscitating   the  popular  faith  in   the    biblical 


166  My  Portfolio, 

demonology  ?  Here,  again,  I  must  believe  that  we 
are  suffering  from  an  extreme  re-action.  Because 
our  fathers,  at  one  end  of  the  pendulum's  swing, 
believed  that  Satan  was  everywhere,  we  at  the 
other  end  believe  that  he  is  nowhere.  Because 
they  attributed  almost  every  evil  thing  to  his 
agency,  we  attribute  nothing  to  it.  That  is  to 
say,  this  is  the  drift  of  popular  opinion.  To  our 
fathers  the  Devil  was  a  real,  a  personal,  an  impe- 
rial power.  He  was  the  sovereign  of  a  malignant 
empire,  which  interpenetrated  and  put  in  peril  all 
human  destinies.  To  them  sin  was  bondage  to 
the  Devil.  They  often  wrote  even  the  pronouns 
of  which  his  name  was  the  antecedent  beginning 
with  a  capital.  The  very  thought  of  him  moved 
them  to  defensive  prayer.  The  grand  old  Litany 
of  England's  saints  reads,  "From  the  crafts  and 
the  assaults  of  the  Devil,  good  Lord,  deliver  us ! " 
Three  times  does  the  Litany  break  forth  into  sup- 
plication against  his  malign  enchantments.  Li 
their  artless  faith  they  prayed  against  malignant 
spirits  almost  in  the  same  breath  in  which  they 
souo^ht  deliverance  from  "battle  and  murder  and 
sudden  death."  Then,  as  if  it  were  the  climax 
of  divine  blessing,  they  pray  the  Lord  ^^ finally  to 
beat  down  Satan  under  our  feet."  In  dead  ear- 
nest they  put  their  whole  Saxon  souls  into  the 
wrestle  with  the  unseen  adversary.  Have  we 
grown  any  wiser  in  "  changing  all  that "  ?  Are 
we  nearer  to  the  solemn  teachings  of  God's  word 
when  we  use  the  Devil  to  point  an  epigram,  or 


How  shall  the  Pulpit  treat  Spiritualism  ?     16T 

raise  a  laugh  ?  Because  our  fathers  went  to  one 
extreme,  if  it  was  an  extreme,  are  we  wiser  than 
they  in  going  to  the  other  ?  Yet  is  not  this  to  a 
large  extent  the  condition  of  the  popular  faith 
to-clay  ?  And  has  not  the  velvet  theology  of  the 
pulpit  in  part  produced  it? 

What  is  the  effect  of  the  change  on  the  history 
of  spiritualism?  Just  this:  we  have  lost  faith  — 
an  operative,  living  faith,  I  mean  —  in  the  only 
'thing  which  can  at  present  explain  this  modern 
necromancy  biblically  and  philosophically.  It 
finds  us  all  dumfoundered.  Restore  the  popular 
faith  in  the  fact  of  a  satanic  kingdom  on  earth, 
and  put  into  that  faith  the  biblical  vividness  of 
belief,  and  my  conviction  is,  that,  with  such  a 
leverage  as  that  faith  would  give,  the  popular 
mind  would  make  very  quick  work  with  spiritual- 
ism, and  every  thing  of  that  ilk. 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  do  not  forget 
the  conquests  of  science  in  our  times  over  the 
occult  things  of  nature.  I  am  not  unmindful  of 
the  possibility  that  scientists  may  yet  explain  that 
residuum  of  mystery  which  thus  far  they  have 
simply  handed  over  to  the  police,  and  which  the 
police  have  sagely  handed  back  again.  Specially, 
I  do  not  ignore  that  wise  conservatism  of  faith 
which  would  fain  reduce  the  supernatural  in  hu- 
man affairs  to  the  minimum.  This  is  as  it  should 
be.  And,  when  science  advances  our  knowledge 
to  the  long-desired  discovery,  it  will  be  our  duty 
to  welcome  it,  and  to  adjust  our  faith  to  proved 


168  My  Portfolio, 

facts.  We  will  not  cling  to  faith  in  will-o'-the- 
wisps,  after  the  laboratory  has  manufactured  phos- 
phorus. But  do  we  not,  as  religious  teachers, 
encounter  a  grave  difficulty,  which  it  is  our  prov- 
ince to  remedy  if  we  can,  in  the  fact,  that,  at  pres- 
ent, science  is  impotent  to  help  us  to  the  discovery, 
and  that  the  mystery  does  not  seem  to  lie  in  the 
domain  of  physical  science  alone,  but  partly  in 
our  spiritual  nature  ?  There  is  miiid  in  it :  there 
is  the  rub.  There  is  a  certain  remnant,  to  say 
the  least,  of  necromantic  intelligence,  before  which 
science  is  dumb.  It  knows  no  more  than  we  do. 
It  talks  to  us  learnedly  of  "  unconscious  cerebra- 
tion," and  "psychic  force,"  and  such  like  things; 
and,  when  we  try  to  put  them  into  Saxon  for  the 
instruction  of  the  people,  they  do  not  know  what 
we  mean.  Do  we  ourselves  know  ?  As  practical 
men  in  a  practical  emergency,  can  we  afford  to 
wait  for  science  to  relieve  us  by  that  kind  of  verbal 
wisdom  ? 

Do  we  not  need  for  present  use  some  simple  yet 
philosophical  explanation,  which  shall  commend 
itself  to  the  common  sense  of  men  and  to  the  bib- 
lical prepossessions  of  the  people,  even  if  our 
respect  for  science  compels  us  to  hold  it  as  only  a 
probable  hypothesis  ?  And  do  we  not  find  that 
explanation  in  the  plain  teachings  of  the  Bible 
respecting  the  malign  realm  of  the  "  Prince  of  the 
power  of  the  air "  ?  We  might  not  venture  to 
create  such  a  solution  on  our  own  authority ;  but 
finding  it,  as  we  do,  ready  to  our  hand,  may  we 


Holo  shall  the  Pulpit  treat  Spiritualism  ?     169 

not  use  it  as  a  tentative  and  probable  hypothesis, 
till  science  shall  extend  our  knowledge,  if  it  can, 
to  something  more  satisfactory  ?  Make  this  king- 
dom of  Satan  a  reality  to  the  common  mind,  as  it 
was  two  centuries  ago  to  the  ablest  of  the  jurists 
and  scientists  of  England,  and  then  the  common 
mind  has  a  plain  biblical  response  at  hand,  when 
tempted  to  receive  the  revelations  of  spiritualism 
as  either  an  antidote  or  a  supplement  to  the  Chris- 
tian Scriptures.  The  response  is  as  philosophical 
as  it  is  biblical,  "  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan." 

Speaking  to  the  same  purpose  in  detail,  I  would 
say.  Vivify  the  people's  faith  in  the  personality  of 
Satan.  Teach  them  that  he  is  a  power  in  the 
universe,  whom  God  condescends  to  treat  as  a 
belligerent.  Bring  back  the  conception  which  the 
fathers  had  of  him,  as  the  head  of  an  aristocratic 
empire,  supported  by  a  multitude  of  subordinates 
and  auxiliaries.  Revive  the  ancient  faith  in  the 
intimacy  of  their  converse  with  the  minds  of  men, 
to  the  extent,  possibly,  of  demoniacal  possession. 
The  Scriptures  nowhere  represent  that  infliction 
—  be  it  disease,  or  sin,  or  both  —  as  obsolete. 
Make  it  a  reality  to  the  popular  imagination,  that 
we  wrestle,  not  with  flesh  and  blood,  but  against 
principalities  and  powers.  Instruct  men  to  fear 
the  craft,  rather  than  the  force,  of  malign  tempt- 
ers. Picture  their  power  to  charm  men  with  fas- 
cinating revelations.  Paint  them  as  angels  fallen, 
beings  once  of  light  and  beauty ;  their  sovereign, 
Lucifer,  the  light-bearer,  son  of  the  morning.     He- 


170  My  Portfolio. 

produce  with  biblical  intensity  the  great  conflict 
of  right  with  wrong  in  the  universe,  as  a  conflict 
between  God  and  Satan.  Open  men's  eyes  to  the 
vision  of  this  earth  as  the  battle-ground  of  in- 
visible combatants  :  make  them  feel  that  the  very 
air  is  tremulous  with  the  march  of  spiritual  bat- 
talions. 

This,  in  fragmentary  outline,  is  the  "  restoration 
of  belief  "  which  the  people  need  to  equip  them 
well  to  meet  this  latest  form  of  the  old  heathen 
magic.  Intrenched  in  such  a  faith,  they  could  not 
readily  be  beguiled  by  the  delusion.  The  poison- 
ous exotic  could  not  take  thrifty  root  in  such 
a  soil.  Is  it  not  for  the  want  of  such  a  soil  in 
the  antecedent  faith  of  the  people,  that  the  delu- 
sion has  taken  foot  so  widely  and  so  disastrously  ? 
And,  if  so,  what  better  thing  can  we  do  than  to 
restore  the  old  faith,  shorn  of  its  excrescences? 
What  better  than  to  lift  back  into  place  the  dis- 
located teachings  of  the  Bible  ? 

With  such  a  faith  antecedently  fixed.  Christian 
men  would  inevitably  attribute  such  things  as  spir- 
ituidism  to  Satanic  wiles.  These  would  appear 
to  them  to  be,  and  would  he^  the  most  philosoph- 
ical explanation  of  those  phenomena,  of  which,  as 
now,  science  and  the  police  should  confess  their 
ignorance.  If  the  biblical  demonology  is  a  fact 
in  the  divine  organization  of  the  universe,  and  if 
demoniac  craft  is  a  fact  in  the  divinely  permitted 
economy  of  probation,  what  else  should  seem  more 
natural  than  these   marvels  over  which  science 


How  shall  the  Pulpit  treat  Spiritualism  ?     171 

despairs  ?  What  else  is  the  demoniac  world  more 
likely  to  be  engaged  in?  If  it  may  be  that  sin, 
matured  and  aged,  tends  to  reduce  the  grade  of 
guilty  intellect,  what  else  is  more  probable  than 
those  frivolities  and  platitudes  which  make  up 
much  of  the  spiritualistic  revelations?  On  the 
other  hand,  what  else  than  the  marvels  bordering 
on  miracle,  which  this  modern  theurgy  offers  to 
gaping  curiosit}^,  are  more  likely  to  be  the  "  signs 
and  wonders  "  which  in  the  last  times  are,  if  pos- 
sible, to  deceive  God's  elect  ?  Are  we  not  in  dan- 
ger of  believing  and  teaching  too  little,  rather 
than  too  much,  on  a  theme  so  dismal  ? 

We  are  in  no  danger  of  restoring  faith  in  the 
tragedies  of  Tower  Hill.  Such  things  as  those, 
once  lived  through  in  the  jurisprudence  of  nations, 
are  never  lived  over  again.  They  must  needs  have 
been,  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  calmer  faith  to 
follow.  The  worst  use  possible  to  make  of  them 
is  to  allow  them  to  frighten  us  out  of  all  faith. 
Better  exhume  Cotton  Mather  than  that. 


XIX. 

POEEIGN  MISSIONS  AND  HOME  MISSIONS  AS  SEEN 
BY  CANDIDATES  TOR  THE  MINISTET. 

The  dearth  of  candidates  for  foreign  missions 
is  surely  an  afflictive,  and,  in  some  aspects,  an 
alarming  fact.  That  single  statement  once  made 
on  the  platform  of  the  American  Board,  "  that  in 
all  our  seminaries  not  one  man  stood  pledged  to 
their  service,"  was  the  blast  of  a  trumpet  like 
that  by  which  the  warder  of  the  old  mediaeval 
castle  used  to  summon  the  men-at-arms  to  the 
rescue.  Every  man  in  the  seminaries  should  heed 
it,  and,  if  he  does  not  respond  in  person,  should  be 
able  to  show  cause.  Why  the  deep  and  prolonged 
interest  in  the  subject  which  almost  always  pre- 
vails in  theological  seminaries  does  not  result  in 
a  large  and  immediate  influx  of  candidates  to  the 
foreign  service  is  too  complicated  an  inquiry  to 
be  briefly  answered ;  yet  there  is  one  fact  which 
goes  far  towards  an  answer  to  it  intelligibly  and 
reasonably. 

Turning  to  the  missionary  history  of  theologi- 
cal schools,  we  find  that  the  revivals  of  the  foreign 
missionary  esprit  commonly  alternate  with  similar 

172 


Foreign  Missions  and  Home  Missions.      173 

waves  of  special  interest  in  home  missions  and  in 
other  departments  of  the  home-work.  I  mean  by 
this,  not  merely,  that,  when  men  do  not  go  abroad, 
they  stay  at  home,  but  that  in  the  intervals  be- 
tween the  awakenings  to  the  wants  of  the  heathen 
world  have  occurred  as  marked  revivals  of  special 
prayer  and  solicitude  and  self-consecration  for  the 
salvation  of  this  country.  The  evidences  of  such 
awakenings  are  such  as  in  an  ordinary  church 
would  prove  the  existence  of  a  revival  of  interest 
in  the  conversion  of  the  surrounding  population. 
Call  them  what  we  may,  they  are  upliftings  of  the 
level  of  Christian  feeling  to  an  unusual  height, 
but  specially  concerned  with  the  work  at  home 
more  than  with  the  work  abroad. 

We  can  not  always  anticipate  what  turn  to  prac- 
tical life  the  inner  spirit  of  a  body  of  Christians 
will  take.  Nor  can  we  always  explain  why  it 
should  take  the  turn  it  does.  We  may  even  find 
difficulty  in  vindicating  its  estimate  of  the  relative 
worth  of  things.  Still  we  can  not  wisely  rebuke 
it,  nor  strive  to  change  its  drift.  Still  less  can  we 
bind  it  to  the  test  of  any  one  development. 

There  was  a  time  wiien,  in  Germany,  the  spirit 
of  evangelical  revival  declared  itself  in  a  special 
interest  in  the  founding  and  support  of  orphan- 
asylums.  The  Orphan  House  at  Halle,  founded 
by  Hermann  Francke,  was  the  representative,  for 
many  years,  of  one  of  the  most  valuable  evangeli- 
cal awakenings  in  German  history.  In  the  middle 
ages  a  literal  obedience  to  our  Lord's  command. 


174  3Iy  Portfolio. 

"  Sell  that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor,"  was 
the  form  in  which  many  a  profound  revival  of  re- 
ligious life  expressed  itself.  Hence,  in  part,  arose 
a  multitude  of  the  hospitals,  asylums,  and  retreats 
which  are  scattered  over  Europe.  The  Holy 
Spirit  in  man  looks  many  ways.  The  "  wheels  " 
in  Ezekiel's  vision  of  the  spirit  of  life  were  "  full 
of  eyes."     Such  is  the  spirit  of  life  in  the  Church. 

Such,  in  character,  are  genuine  revivals  of  mis- 
sionary zeal  in  a  seminary.  They  are  one  in  spirit 
and  in  power ;  but  sometimes  they  drift  eastward, 
and  sometimes  westward,  and  sometimes  they  do 
not  drift  at  all.  Now  they  concentrate  attention 
upon  China,  India,  Japan,  and  then  upon  Dakota, 
Oregon,  ^'alifornia ;  and  again,  with  every  ap- 
pearance of  the  sa  ne  missionary  consecration,  the 
young  men  choose  the  little  church  in  the  Green 
Mountains,  or  the  metropolitan  pulpit,  or  the  mis- 
sion church  under  its  shadow. 

One  illustration  of  the  westward  drifting  of 
such  a  missionary  revival  is  the  fo^'iiation  at 
Andover  of  the  well-known  Iowa  Band.  In  that 
more  than  Holy  League  eleven  men  allied  them- 
selves to  go  to  that  then  desolate  territory.  Their 
success  is  some  evidence  that  they  were  not  mis- 
taken in  their  choice.  A  very  intelligent  layman 
of  that  State  has  expressed  the  opinion,  that  that 
Band  from  Andover  (reduced  to  nine  before 
reaching  the  field)  achieved  more  than  any  other 
human  agency  to  save  the  whole  State  from 
infidelity. 


Foreign  Missions  and  Home  3Iissions.      175 

Later  was  formed  the  smaller  but  equally  illus- 
trious Kansas  Band.  Its  members  went  to  that 
State  when  it  was  in  the  death-struggle  with 
slavery.  Their  usefulness  in  laying  religious 
foundations  deep  and  strong  is  immeasurable. 
Not  only  churches  and  Sunday  schools,  and  the 
establishment  of  a  sabbath,  but  colleges,  libraries, 
the  local  press,  the  whole  school  system  of  the 
State,  and  the  introduction  of  the  same  institu- 
tions into  Nebraska  and  "the  regions  beyond," 
have  felt  the  influence  of  their  plastic  hand. 
They  have  done  their  work,  too,  at  the  peril  of 
limb  and  life.  One  of  them  escaped,  by  only  the 
protection  of  a  rail  fence,  the  infamous  Quantrell 
Massacre.  Few  clergymen  live  to-day  who  have 
so  much  to  show  for  twenty  years  of  work  as  those 
Kansas  pioneers.  And  they  have  as  many  years 
more  to  labor  before  ''  the  grasshopper  "  will  "  be- 
come a  burden." 

Both  of  those  companies  of  Western  volunteers, 
and  scores  of  others  of  the  same  guild,  were  the 
very  men,  who,  if  the  Lord  had  not  directed  them, 
as  they  believed,  to  the  frontier  of  our  own  land, 
would  have  been  very  likely  to  be  found  to-day  in 
the  foreign  service.  When  they  went  westward, 
great  disappointment  was  felt  that  they  did  not 
go  eastward.  Yet  who  will  now  venture  to  say 
that  they  mis-heard  the  Master's  voice  ?  Would 
any  one  of  us  venture  to  undo  all  that  they  have 
achieved,  and  veto  all  that  they  give  promise  of 
achieving,  in   their  chosen  field,  for  the  sake  of 


176  My  Portfolio. 

even  the  magnificent  work  which  they  doubtless 
would  have  accomplished  in  India  or  Japan  ? 

It  is  also  specially  to  be  remembered  that  the 
relative  claims  of  the  home  and  the  foreign  fields 
have  not  been  for  the  last  fifteen  years  what  they 
were  before  the  war.  The  home-work  has  ex- 
panded immeasurably  in  its  practicable  extent,  and 
been  intensified  unspeakably  in  its  urgency.  Are 
we  not  all  trembling  before  it  to-day  ?  Is  not  our 
priceless  inheritance  from  our  fathers  trembling 
in  the  balance,  for  the  want  of  a  calm,  scholarly, 
Christian  leadership  for  the  countless  hosts  of 
ignorance  and  depravity  into  whose  hands  we 
have  put,  not  the  spelling-book  and  the  Testa- 
ment, but  ballots  and  muskets?  Is  not  the  weight 
of  the  destiny  of  this  land  often  intolerable  to 
those  who  feel  called  of  God  to  stand  under  and 
lift  it?  Do  we  not  feel  impelled  to  hasten  the 
work  of  redemption?  Can  we  afford  delay? 
What  means  the  increase  of  the  annual  income  of 
the  American  Missionary  Association  from  forty 
thousand  dollars  before  the  war  to  three  hun- 
dred thousand  now?  Does  not  a  profound  alarm 
among  the  Christians  in  this  country  express  itself 
in  this  fact  ? 

When  Gen.  Grant  was  before  Petersburg,  at  a 
critical  moment  of  the  siege,  his  only  word  of 
command  was,  "Pour  in  the  men,  pour  in  the 
men!''  So  do  we  not  all  of  us  judge  and  feel, 
through  all  the  broken  deeps  of  our  souls,  that 
the  only  thing  which  can  save  this  land  for  Christ 


Foreign  3Iissions  and  Home  3Iissions.      177 

is  to  pour  in  the  men,  and  to  do  it  notv  ?  West, 
South,  North-west,  South-west,  the  whole  frontier, 
and  strategic  keys  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf, 
must  be  carried  soon,  or  not  at  all,  as  it  seems  to 
all  human  foresight. 

The  protection  of  our  Lord's  Day,  the  salvation 
of  our  youth  from  infidelity,  the  preservation  of 
our  school  system,  the  planting  of  even  the  rudi- 
mental  institutions  of  Christianity  in  the  new 
States,  the  crushing  of  Mormonism,  the  uplifting 
of  the  negro  from  the  awful  slough  of  ignorance 
and  corruption  in  which  freedom  has  surprised 
him,  the  not  less  imperative  need  of  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  Southern  white  men,  the  rescue  of 
both  races  in  the  Southern  half  of  the  land  from 
the  clutch  of  Romanism,  the  recovery  of  the  whole 
Southern  conscience  from  the  obtuseness  which 
slavery  has  inflicted,  the  substitution  of  the  civili- 
zation of  the  alphabet  for  that  of  the  bowie-knife, 
and  the  christianizing  of  the  American  Chinese, 
—  these  are  but  the  pioneer  work  of  the  gospel  on 
this  continent.  The  maturity  of  Christian  civiliza- 
tion lies  far  away  beyond  them. 

Does  not  the  exigency  which  is  upon  us  fairly 
open  the  question,  whether  a  far-seeing  policy  does 
not  dictate  a  suspension  of  advance  in  the  foreign 
work,  allowing  it  simply  to  hold  its  own,  if  this  is 
necessary  to  the  speedy  achievements  of  certain 
preliminary  conquests  in  this  country?  Can  not 
the  world,  as  a  whole,  better  afford  that  China  and 
Japan  should  wait   twenty  years   longer  for  the 


178  My  Portfolio. 

gospel  than  that  Nebraska,  Colorado,  Texas,  and 
the  Carolinas  should  wait?  Is  it  not  a  less  evil 
that  Africa  in  the  East  should  wait  than  that  our 
own  Africa  in  the  South  should  ? 

Look  at  those  pitiable  colored  churches  !  What 
are  the  elements  of  many  of  them  ?  —  consciences 
poisoned  by  fetich-worship  yet  lurking  in  the 
blood,  corrupted  by  the  degradations  which  none 
but  a  slave  knows,  and  these  made  putrid  by  the 
more  degrading  example  of  the  master.  In  how 
many  of  them  are  falsehood,  theft,  concubinage, 
adultery,  a  bar  to  church-membership  ?  If  rumor 
be  true,  how  much  above  them  are  some  of  the 
white  churches  ?  Can  we  venture,  is  it  good  policy 
to  venture,  farther  into  the  heart  of  heathendom, 
leaving  such  rotting  monstrosities  of  our  Christi- 
anity behind  us  ? 

The  conflict  is  one,  —  fought  on  one  field,  under 
one  strategic  Mind,  for  one  grand  conquest. 
While  the  loyal  forces  are  so  few,  and,  relatively 
to  the  enemy,  so  feeble,  it  may  not  be  wise  poli- 
cy to  "advance  all  along  the  line."  Said  the 
commander  of  the  French  forces,  witnessing  the 
famous  "ride  upon  death"  of  the  six  hundred  Eng- 
lish cavalry  at  Balaklava,  "  It  is  magnificent,  but 
it  is  not  war."  So  the  resolve  of  the  Christian 
Church  to  evangelize  the  world  in  this  generation 
might  be  the  sublime  of  heroism,  and  yet  not  wise. 
If,  then,  there  must  be  a  halt  anywhere,  does  not 
the  millennial  reign  require  that  that  halt  should 
7iot  be   on    this   Western   Continent?      Is   there 


Foreign  Missions  and  Home  3Iissions.      179 

another  country  on  the  globe  whose  immediate 
evangelizing  is  so  vital  to  the  world's  redemption 
as  that  of  our  own  ? 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  answer  these  questions 
authoritatively.  None  but  an  infinite  Mind  can 
do  that.  Still  less  would  I  answer  them,  or  ask 
them,  to  the  discouragement  of  foreign  missions. 
Nor  is  the  necessity  supposed,  by  any  means  to  be 
yet  conceded.  But  my  sole  object  in  asking  these 
questions  is  to  state  the  case  fairly,  as  it  has  stated 
itself  to  young  candidates  for  the  ministry,  spe- 
cially during  the  last  fifteen  years.  The  question 
of  their  life's  work  has  come  before  them  under 
an  alternative  so  complicated  as  to  perplex  the 
wisest,  and  so  fearful  as  to  appall  the  boldest. 

To  them  the  cause  of  Christ  in  this  land  seems 
to  be  in  an  unprecedented  strait.  The  element 
of  speed  appears  to  be  a  more  potent  factor  in 
the  problem  of  its  salvation  than  in  that  of  any 
other  portion  of  the  globe.  Every  thing  seems 
to  depend  on  quick  marches.  The  Napoleonic 
policy,  of  rapid  movement  of  great  forces  to  great 
conquests,  appears  to  them  the  only  one  that 
promises  ultimate  success.  If  there  is  anywhere 
under  Christian  banners  an  Imperial  Guard,  which 
"  dies,  but  never  surrenders,"  but  whose  presence 
insures  victory,  they  feel  that  its  prestige  and 
power  are  needed  here.  They  explore  the  West 
and  the  South,  and  come  back  awestruck  at  the 
impending  conflict.  They  listen  to  foreign  mis- 
sionaries and  home  missionaries,  fresh  from  their 


180  My  Portfolio, 

fields  of  honor,  side  by  side ;  and  to  the  majority 
of  them  the  home-work  appears  to  be  in  the  most 
appalling  danger  from  delay.  Results  good  and 
evil,  which  elsewhere  will  accumulate  arith- 
metically, must  here  accumulate  geometrically. 
Though  inferior  vastly  in  present  numbers,  this 
land  seems  to  them  to  be  "  the  key  of  the  posi- 
tion "  which  must  command  the  field.  The  power 
which  holds  it  makes  conquest  of  the  world.  To 
the  older  continents  it  is  what  the  chateau  of 
Hougomont  and  the  farm  of  La  Haye  Sainte  were 
to  the  field  of  Waterloo.  It  must  be  taken  and 
held  for  Christ,  or  we  must  say,  as  Napoleon  did 
when  the  Old  Guard  broke  :  "  All  is  lost !  " 

Such  is  the  outlook  upon  that  "  field  "  which  "  is 
the  world,"  as  these  young  men  see  it,  when  they 
ponder  the  question  where  to  take  their  places  in 
the  ranks.  Yet,  setting  aside  all  these  facts,  which 
plead  so  potently  for  advance  quick  and  strong  in 
the  home-work,  the  secretaries  of  the  American 
Home  Missionary  Society  tell  them,  that  for  the 
work  of  that  organization  alone — if  it  should  make 
no  advance,  but  simply  hold  its  own  for  twenty 
years  to  come  —  not  less  than  fifty  new  men  must 
be  furnished  every  year.  If  the  young  men  see 
in  this  condition  of  things  the  call  of  God  to  them, 
who  will  venture  to  dispute  their  vision  ?  Who 
of  us,  in  the  face  of  his  own  life's  record,  will 
take  it  upon  himself  to  say  that  they  are  deciding 
the  question  of  their  life's  work  with  either  a 
blind  or  a  self-indulgent  judgment  ? 


XX. 


POKEiaN  MISSIONS,  THEIR  EANGE  OP  APPEAL  POR 
MISSIONARIES  LIMITED. 

"  We  are  three  millions,  one-fifth  fighting  men," 
are  the  words  which  Webster  puts  into  the  mouth 
of  the  elder  Adams  of  Revolutionary  fame.  The 
proportion  of  the  young  men  in  our  seminaries 
who  can  go  into  the  foreign  field  is  restricted 
somewhat,  as  is  the  proportion  of  "  fighting  men  " 
in  the  population  of  a  country.  The  two  propor- 
tions are  not  equally  low  perhaps ;  but  that  of  the 
possible  foreign  missionaries  rarely  if  ever  exceeds 
one-third  of  the  whole  number  on  a  seminary  cata- 
logue, and  often  falls  as  low  as  one-fourth. 

Does  this  seem  to  be  a  low  estimate  ?  Look  at 
the  facts.  A  large  section  of  these  young  men 
are  excluded  from  the  reckoning  by  considerations 
of  health.  Their  own  health,  or,  as  probably,  that 
of  their  chosen  companions  for  life,  settles  the 
question  imperatively  and  adversely.  The  ques- 
tion often  is  not  from  the  Board  to  the  student, 
^'  Will  you  go  ?  "  but  from  the  student  to  the  Board, 
"May  I  go?"  And  the  answer  is,  "No  :  the  treas- 
ury can  not  take  the  risk  of  your  infirm  health." 

181 


182  My  Portfolio, 

Another  fragment,  of  variable  size,  must  be 
struck  from  the  list,  for  special  infirmity  in  lin- 
guistic acquisition.  One  devoted  missionary,  after 
twenty  years  of  service,  could  not  preach  intelli- 
gibly to  the  natives,  and  was  obliged  to  return 
home.  The  churches  ought  not  to  afford  many 
such  experiments.  Yet  not  all  students  have  the 
"gift  of  tongues."  If  some  of  them  should  be 
sent  abroad,  some  brother  Aaron  of  whom  it  can 
be  said,  "  I  know  that  he  can  speak  well  in  Arabic 
or  Chinese,"  must  be  sent  with  each  to  do  the 
preaching  for  him. 

A  further  fraction  must  be  set  aside,  for  the 
possession  of  some  rare  gift  or  taste  which  has 
fore-ordained  them  to  some  special  department  of 
service  at  home.  When  I  go  into  a  student's 
room,  and  find  him  reading  La  Place's  "  Mecha- 
nique  Celeste  "  for  recreation,  and  discover  upon 
his  shelf  a  novel  chronometer  of  his  own  inven- 
tion and  manufacture,  and  learn  that  he  is  the 
only  man  in  Massachusetts  who  has  calculated 
the  date  of  a  coming  eclipse,  I  strongly  suspect 
that  He  who  created  him  did  not  intend  that  he 
should  be  a  street-preacher  in  Canton,  but  predes- 
tined him  to  be  a  professor  of  natural  philosophy 
in  a  Western  college ;  and  my  zeal  for  missions 
is  not  offended  by  his  drifting  into  that  position 
for  his  life's  work. 

When  the  late  Professor  Putnam  of  Dartmouth 
College,  one  of  the  most  accomplished  Greek 
scholars  of  the  country,  stood  on  the  platform  at 


Foreign  Missions,  183 

his  graduation  at  Andover,  more  than  one  of  his 
hearers,  taking  their  cue  from  his  oration,  pro- 
nounced him  "  the  young  Grecian  ;  "  thus  confirm- 
ing the  judgment  of  his  collegiate  and  theological 
instructors,  that  the  God  of  nature  had  made  him 
to  be  a  professor  of  the  Greek  language  and  lit- 
erature. Unfortunately  for  the  missionary  aspira- 
tions of  such  men,  the  demand  for  professors  of 
natural  philosophy  and  of  Greek  literature  among 
the  Zulus  is  not  oppressive. 

My  friend  Professor  Churchill  will  pardon  me 
for  saying,  that,  when  his  rare  elocutionary  and 
histrionic  gifts  developed  themselves  at  Harvard 
College  and  in  the  seminary,  there  was  but  one 
voice  among  sagacious  educators  as  to  the  reason 
of  his  creation.  But  the  need  of  American  pro- 
fessors of  elocution  among  the  Arabs  is  not  over- 
whelming. 

Only  once  in  my  life  have  I  ventured  to  advise 
a  young  man  to  sacrifice  a  remarkable  natural 
genius  for  mechanical  invention  to  a  study  for  the 
ministry.  Unfortunately,  he  followed  my  counsel. 
His  glib  tongue  led  me  to  trust  that  he  had  been 
"made  upright."  But  he  "sought  out  many  in- 
ventions." One  of  them  was  of  such  astounding 
originality  for  a  country  parson,  that  it  has  raised 
him  to  the  distinction  of  being  the  only  one  of 
the  more  than  three  thousand  students  of  Ando- 
ver Seminary  whose  services  the  Commonwealth 
has  found  it  expedient  for  its  own  safety  to  em- 
ploy in  the  State  Prison.  "All  is  vanity  and 
vexation  of  spirit." 


184  My  Portfolio. 

Certain  natural  tastes  and  gifts  are  God's  hints 
of  revelation.  They  cannot  be  safely  crossed. 
Mischief  comes  of  it.  Yet  they  divert  some  men 
from  foreign  missions,  and  ought  to  withhold  some 
from  the  ministry  altogether.  The  best  work  done 
in  this  world  is  joyous  work.  And  joyous  work 
must  command  a  man's  whole  being,  free  from  the 
friction  of  misplaced  powers  and  the  gasping  of 
stifled  tastes. 

Still  another  small  section,  but  an  appreciable 
one,  must  be  omitted,  for  the  want  of  adequate 
natural  force  for  the  foreign  work.  Time  was, 
when,  of  an  inferior  preacher,  the  proverb  ran, 
"  He  may  do  for  a  missionary."  We  are  wiser  than 
that  now.  Foreign  missions  demand  our  ablest 
men.  They  must  stand  before  kings.  They  must 
confound  learned  and  adroit  sophists,  demolish 
ancient  systems  of  philosophy,  uproot  religions 
which  have  stood  a  thousand  years.  They  are  to 
be  constructors  of  new  institutions,  the  founders 
of  churches,  of  colleges,  of  professional  schools, 
of  national  school  systems,  the  creators  of  written 
languages  from  their  very  alphabet,  the  origina- 
tors of  a  Christian  literature  in  tongues  which  lack 
words  for  Christian  thought,  the  pioneers,  defend- 
ers, teachers,  and  fathers  of  Christian  civilization 
among  nations  which  make  gods  of  their  heathen 
ancestry.  Who  is  sufficient  for  these  things  ?  A 
young  man  may  be  very  useful  as  the  pope  of  a 
mountain  town  in  New  England,  —  yes,  he  may 
grace  one  of  our  metropolitan  pulpits,  —  who  could 


Foreign  Missions.  185 

not  be  trusted  to  master  the  Tamil  language,  de- 
bate in  it  with  erudite  Brahmins,  and  build  the 
foundations  of  christianized  society  in  Ceylon. 

Yet  another  reduction  of  the  list  is  made  by 
the  misfortune  of  a  few  young  men  in  having  been 
born  to  luxury  and  wealth  —  their  misfortune,  not 
their  fault.  With  rare  exceptions,  so  rare  that 
they  always  excite  commendatory  remark,  those 
are  restricted  in  their  range  of  place  and  service, 
who  have  been  reared  amidst  the  refinements  and 
delicacies  of  an  affluent  metropolitan  home.  They 
can  not  "  endure  hardness."  The  cost  of  the  en- 
durance, beyond  the  brief  stimulus  of  an  emer- 
gency, is  very  apt  to  be  the  destruction  of  health,. 

In  the  first  year  of  the  civil  war,  when  a  regi- 
ment from  Lowell  encamped  near  Washington  by 
the  side  of  the  New- York  Seventh,  famed  for  its 
enlistments  from  the  wealthiest  families  of  the  me- 
tropolis, the  factory  operatives  and  farmer's  sons 
volunteered  to  the  work  of  the  trenches,  or  some- 
thing similar,  saying  to  the  metropolitans,  "  You 
are  not  made  for  such  work  as  this."  It  was  true, 
and  no  crime  of  theirs :  they  were  not  made  for 
it.  With  mutual  and  rare  generosity,  each  sup- 
plemented the  other,  every  man  doing  what  he 
was  made  for. 

So  in  the  allotments  of  ministerial  service,  with 
just  exceptions  enough  to  prove  the  rule,  the  sons 
of  luxury  and  wealth  can  not  be  depended  upon 
for  rough  work.  Generally  speaking,  we  do  not 
look  to  them  for  recruits  for  foreign  missionary 


186  My  Portfolio. 

service.  Other  service  they  can  do,  and  have  done 
nobly.  All  honor  to  the  J^oung  man,  who,  like  the 
late  Dr.  Codman  of  Dorchester,  with  no  necessity 
of  labor  for  his  livelihood,  enters  the  ministry,  and 
remains  in  it  as  the  loved  work  of  his  life  !  But 
Dr.  Codman  could  not  have  done  equal  service  as 
a  missionary,  even  in  Constantinople. 

Yet  again :  the  candidates  for  the  foreign  service 
are  reduced  by  considerations  of  domestic  duty 
and  pecuniary  liability.  One  young  man  has  a 
widowed  mother  or  an  invalid  sister  dependent 
upon  him  for  society  and  support.  Another  is  the 
eldest  son  of  a  large  and  fatherless  family.  A 
third,  left  an  orphan  in  his  infancy,  has  been  nur- 
tured and  educated  by  foster-parents,  who  now  in 
their  old  age  are  dependent  upon  him.  A  fourth 
rej)resents  dozens,  who  have  debts  incurred  for 
their  education.  They  can  not  honestly  leave  the 
country  till  these  debts  are  paid.  Such  debts 
overhang  our  pastors  at  home,  for  ten,  even  twen- 
ty years.  One  professor  in  a  New-England  insti- 
tution has  been  paying  such  a  debt  in  driblets  for 
thirty  years.  True,  parsonages  at  home  are  not 
mines  of  gold,  any  more  than  missionary  homes 
at  Beirut ;  but  young  men  may  more  reasonably 
hope  to  liquidate  debts  in  some  way  here  than 
abroad. 

Once  more :  students  are  withheld  from  the  for- 
eign work  by  the  strenuous  opposition  of  family 
and  friends.  A  father  interposes  objections,  with 
a  power  behind  which  gives  them  the  force  of  a 


Foreign  Missions,  187 

veto.  A  mother  objects  with  strong  crj'ing  and 
tears,  which  a  son  can  not  resist.  The  best  of  these 
young  men  are  but  men  at  best.  Through  college 
and  seminary  one  has  waited  seven  years  for  a 
certain  Rachel,  ''  beautiful  and  well  favored,"  and 
"  they  seem  to  him  but  a  few  days  for  the  love  he 
has  to  her."  But  she,  at  the  last  moment,  draws 
back  from  the  unknown  perils  of  exile  in  a  foreign 
land.  Unlike  her  namesake,  she  does  not  say, 
"  Whatsoever  God  hath  said  unto  thee,  do."  Or, 
more  probably,  her  mother  objects,  who,  unfortu- 
nately, does  not  live  in  Padan-aram.  She  breaks 
down  her  daughter's  courage  by  a  tearful  reminder 
of  the  fate  of  Harriet  Newell ;  and  the  two  Niobes 
together  make  our  young  missionary  feel  that  he  is 
a  monster.  Professor  Stuart  was  an  early  and  life- 
long friend  of  missions,  and  not  a  man  of  mawkish 
sensibilities ;  yet  he  never  could  bring  himself  to 
advise  a  young  man  to  ask,  for  the  sake  of  the  mis- 
sionary service,  release  from  the  marriage-engage- 
ment of  his  youth.  Whether  such  obstacles  as  these 
ought  to  exist  or  not,  they  do  exist :  young  men 
can  not  control  them.  They  are  often  the  decisive 
weight  thrown  into  the  perhaps  trembling  scales. 

Foreign  missions,  therefore,  when  they  apply  at 
the  doors  of  a  theological  seminary  for  men,  are 
compelled  to  pass  by  these  various  fragments  of  a 
graduating  class.  What,  then,  is  the  result?  These 
fractions  swell,  in  the  aggregate,  into  a  majority. 
The  result  is,  that  the  range  of  choice  for  foreign 
missions  is  narrowed  down  to  not  more  than  one- 


188  My  Portfolio. 

third,  and  often  to  one-fourth,  of  the  whole  num- 
ber of  candidates  for  the  ministry.  Those  who  can 
go,  those  to  whom  the  question  is  an  equal  one, 
those  to  whom  it  is  even  an  open  question,  are  but 
these  few.  So  much  the  more  urgent,  then,  is  the 
appeal  to  them.  So  much  the  more  impressive  is 
the  magnitude  of  their  responsibility.  So  much 
the  more  exalted  is  their  privilege.  They  are  the 
few  chosen  ones,  whose  opportunity  is  world-wide. 

Said  one  of  England's  great  statesmen,  in  a 
crisis  of  the  nation's  history,  and  with  proud  con- 
sciousness of  a  great  opportunity,  "  I  am  the  only 
man  in  England  who  can  save  this  country ;  and 
I  can  do  it."  May  not  this  group  of  youthful 
preachers  who  labor  under  no  local  limitations  of 
Christian  service  say  with  humbler  but  more  rea- 
sonable exultation,  "  We  are  the  only  preachers  of 
Christ  who  can  carry  the  gospel  to  the  heathen, 
and  we  can  do  it "  ?  If  this  limited  fraction,  con- 
sisting of  those  who  can^  would  volunteer  to  the 
work  from  which  their  less  favored  brethren  are 
excluded,  our  foreign  missions  would  at  least  be 
saved  from  retrogression  and  disaster.  Again ;  he 
that  hath  an  ear  to  hear,  let  him  hear. 

But  this  conflict  of  duties  to  the  home  and  the 
foreign  work  suggests  another  phase  of  the  experi- 
ence of  the  young  men  in  seminaries.  It  is,  that 
in  view  of  the  ujiiversal  cry  for  re-enforcements, 
and  perhaps  weary  of  the  doubts  of  a  hesitating 
conscience,  they  often  come  to  the  conclusion  at 
last,  that  it  can  make  but  little  difference  where 


Foreign  Missions,  189 

they  go.  Go  where  they  may,  they  are  but  a  drop 
in  a  maelstrom.  Go  where  they  may,  they  plunge 
into  exigencies  beyond  their  strength.  Go  where 
they  may,  they  go  under  the  high  pressure  of  an 
intense  conscience.  Neither  to  the  work  nor  them- 
selves does  it  seem  to  matter  much  which  way 
they  turn  their  steps. 

Said  Gen.  Howard  at  Gettysburg,  to  a  squad  of 
stragglers  who  were  scrupulously  hunting  for  their 
regimental  colors,  "  Fall  in,  boys,  fall  in  under  the 
first  flag  you  come  to:   there's  the  enemy:  you 
can't  go  wrong."     So,  in  the  turmoil  of  this  great 
morarconflict,  this  little  squad  of  young  men  some- 
times lose  sight  of  "departments"  and  "fields," 
of  east  and  west   and  south.     The    "here"    and 
"there"  become  insignificant.      They  are  apt  at 
last  to  settle  the  question  in  the  mood  of  feeling, 
that,  if  they  "fall  in"  anywhere,  they  "can't  go 
wrong."    Yet  "the  first  flag  they  come  to  "  means, 
perhaps,  the  vacant  pulpit  of  the  church  whose 
spire  is  visible  from  their  study-windows. 

Is  not  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter,  then, 
the  policy  of  increasing  the  numbers  of  candidates 
for  the  ministry,  and  of  those  especially  who  seek 
the  ministry,  not  for  its  metropolitan  and  suburb- 
an service,  but  for  the  sake  of  its  missionary  privi- 
leges? Let  us  go  to  the  colleges  and  the  churches 
for  missionary  candidates.  Let  men  be  drawn  from 
the  church  to  the  college,  and  from  the  college  ^  to 
the  seminary,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  preaching 
Christ  as  missionaries  only,  and  they  will  be  the 
more  likely  to  stick  to  their  first  choice. 


190  My  Portfolio, 

Such  men  make  the  best  missionaries  too.  The 
very  best  are  those  who  never  had  other  ambi- 
tions. The  charm  of  David  Scudder's  brief  mis- 
sionary life  was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  was  born 
to  it.  He  never  had  another  choice  of  his  life's 
work.  He  had  no  youthful  aspirations  to  surren- 
der. In  after-life  he  had  no  regretful  memories. 
His  whole  history  was  cumulative  towards  one  end. 
Hence  the  concentration  of  his  aim.  Hence  his 
joy  in  his  work.  Hence,  too,  the  fascination  of  his 
sway  over  others  and  the  resplendent  promise  of 
his  manhood.  Such  men  are  the  missionary  powers, 
wherever  they  are,  —  in  the  home,  in  the  church, 
in  the  college,  in  the  seminary,  in  the  field.  Let 
us  multiply  such  young  men,  and  the  future  of 
missions  at  home  and  abroad  will  be  progressive 
and  triumphant. 


XXI. 

OONaEEaATIOlTALISTS   AND   PEESBYTEEIANS :  A 
PLEA  POR  UNION. 

CoNGREGATiONALzsm  and  Presbyterianism  are 
natural  foes,  but  Congregationalists  and  Presby- 
terians are  naturally  one.     Such  is  the  difference 
between  isms  and  the  men  and  women  who  work 
them  in  real  life.     Has  not  the  time  come  around 
again  in  the  cycle  of  history,  when  the  unity  of 
these  two  great  bodies  of   Christians  should  be 
expressed  more  palpably  to  the   world's  vision? 
Perhaps   not   by   the    resumption    of    abrogated 
"plans  of  union,"  certainly  not  by  the  resurrec- 
tion  of   any  thing   resonant  with  the  echoes  of 
ancient  warfare.     But   in  modes   congruous  with 
existing  modes  of   thought,  and  with  no  loss  to 
the  individuality   of   either,   may  not  these   two 
wings  of  the  Lord's  hosts  cross  over  to  each  other, 
and  march  abreast  ? 

Thet/  are  one  in  their  history.  The  early  evan- 
gelizing of  this  country  scarcely  knew  a  difference 
between  them.  They  professed  the  same  standards 
of  belief;  they  revered  the  same  great  names  in 
the  history  of  the  old  countries;   they  inherited 


191 


192  My  Portfolio. 

the  same  traditions  from  the  Reformation.  In  this 
country,  President  Edwards  represents  a  class  of 
leaders  in  both  churches,  who  to  this  day  are  as 
venerable  to  one  as  to  the  other.  So  late  as  the 
time  of  the  founding  of  Andover  Seminary,  its 
charter  decreed  that  its  professors  for  ever  should 
be  ministers  in  either  the  Congregational  or  the 
Presbyterian  communion.  That  provision  was  a 
faithful  exponent  of  the  Congregationalism  of  that 
day.  Our  Congregational  fathers  never  dreamed 
of  the  time  w^hen  their  successors  could  not  cross 
the  border  into  the  Presbyterian  fold,  and  when 
Presbyterians  could  not  reciprocate  the  fellowship, 
without  a  stigma  upon  their  loyalty.  The  divid- 
ing line  was  practically  as  invisible  as  the  equator. 

Hence  grew  up  that  grand  union  of  these  two 
bodies  in  missionary  and  benevolent  activity, 
which  has  been  the  glory  of  our  time.  When  the 
seminary  at  Princeton  was  founded,  it  was  be- 
lieved to  be,  and  it  was,  only  an  extension  of  the 
work  begun  at  Andover.  Antagonism  between 
the  two  was  never  broached.  It  has  required  a 
half-century  of  denominational  discipline  to  con- 
vince the  rank  and  file  of  the  two  churches  that 
they  need  any  other  almoner  of  their  foreign  mis- 
sionary bounty  than  the  American  Board.  Some 
of  them  are  not  yet  convinced.  Many  look  back 
with  longing  to  the  ancient  brotherhood.  Is  it 
decreed  that  those  days  have  departed  never  to 
return  ? 

The  two  churches  are  still  one  in  their  doctrinal 


Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians.      193 

faith.  Since  the  re-union  of  the  two  branches  of 
the  Presbyterian  body  (disrupted  in  1837),  and 
since  the  re-affirmation  of  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession by  the  National  Council  of  Congregation- 
alists at  Plymouth,  it  may  be  fairly  presumed  that 
theological  diversities  need  never  again  alienate 
these  denominations  from  each  other.  Their  faith 
is  one.  The  orthodoxy  of  Presbyterians  has  never 
been  questioned  in  New  England ;  and  the  New- 
England  theology,  once  suspected  and  denounced, 
has  been  substantially  indorsed  by  the  Presbj^te- 
rian  Church.  By  a  "  thirty-years  '  war"  it  has  es- 
tablished its  right  to  he  under  the  Presbyterian 
banner.  No  man  will  ever  again  be  arraigned 
before  the  Presbyterian  courts  for  holding  the 
theology  of  Albert  Barnes  and  Lyman  Beecher. 
That  question  was  settled  when  Albert  Barnes 
was  welcomed  back  into  the  re-united  Presbyte- 
rian Church  without  a  retraction  of  any  word  he 
ever  preached  or  published.  With  that  question 
was  settled,  also,  the  theological  soundness  of  the 
Congregational  clergy  as  judged  by  Presbyterian 
standards ;  for  the  Westminster  Confession  is  a 
common  standard  to  both.  The  faith  of  the  two, 
I  repeat,  is  one.  No  theological  grounds  remain 
for  alienation  between  them.  No  doctrinal  reasons 
exist  why  the  clergy  of  the  two  denominations 
should  not  cross  and  re  cross  the  border,  in  the 
interchange  of  pastorates,  as  freely  as  in  the  days 
of  Dr.  Griffin  and  Dr.  Skinner. 

In  administrative  policy,  also,  the  two  churches  are 


194  My  Portfolio, 

essentially  the  same.  If  one  is  a  trifle  more  con- 
servative than  the  other,  and  the  other  is  a  trifle 
more  radical  than  the  one,  the  difference  is  not 
repellent :  it  is  only  sufficient  to  render  each  the 
natural  complement  of  the  other.  Each  would  be 
more  efficient  in  union  with  the  other.  Both  are 
progressive  conservatives ;  both  are  conservative 
reformers.  The  two  ideal  foci  of  all  healthy 
growth  represented  by  the  words  "  conservatism  " 
and  "progress"  shine  as  luminously  in  the  one 
ellipse  as  in  the  other.  Presbyterians  are  not 
Bourbons:  Congregationalists  are  not  Jacobins. 
Both  are  Girondists.  He  must  be  the  common 
enemy  of  both  who  would  guillotine  either. 

Even  their  forms  of  church  polity,  so  divergent 
in  theory,  are  not  schismatically  asunder  in  prac- 
tice. Any  form  of  church  government  is  what 
the  spirit  is  which  energizes  it.  I  know  a  Congre- 
gational church  in  Boston  —  who  does  not?  —  in 
which  affairs  are  as  presbj^terially  administered 
as  they  ever  were  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church 
of  Baltimore  under  the  trenchant  sway  of  Dr. 
Breckinridge.  The  First  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Philadelphia,  under  Albert  Barnes,  was  as  congre- 
gationally  governed  in  spirit  as  any  one  of  a  hun- 
dred churches,  taken  at  random,  in  Massachusetts. 

The  two  systems  of  church  polity  have  been 
modifying  each  other,  the  one  consolidating  and 
the  other  liquefying,  for  two  hundred  years.  In 
the  result,  both  are  developed,  in  the  spirit  of  the 
New  Testament  and  of  common  sense,  more  sym- 


Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians.      195 

metrically  than  if  they  had  not  been  historically 
intermingled.  The  drift  towards  union  of  the  two 
denominations  is  so  powerful  from  other  causes, 
that  church  polity  alone  can  not  keep  them  long 
asunder,  except  in  times  when  denominational 
blood  is  at  fever-heat.  Even  then,  the  hot  blood 
inflames  the  few,  not  all.  The  neighings  of  eccle- 
siastical war-horses  who  scent  the  battle  from  afar 
must  not  be  mistaken  for  the  equal  breathings  of 
Christian  aspiration  by  the  men  and  women  who 
make  up  these  hosts  of  God's  elect.  TJieir  thought 
of  each  other  is  always  and  profoundly  fraternal. 

The  two  denominations  are  one,  also,  m  respect  to 
the  class  of  minds  to  which  they  appeal  successfully 
for  su2:)p)07^t.  All  the  great  denominations  of 
Christendom  are  founded  upon  certain  radical 
diversities  of  mental  structure.  They  have  not 
sprung  up  at  hap-hazard.  They  are  not  the  fated 
outgrowths  of  history.  They  have  grown  out  of 
the  same  differences  of  human  nature  which  make 
history.  Shrewd  observers  of  character  often 
think  they  can  detect  in  a  good  man's  countenance 
the  expression  of  the  religious  sect  to  which  he 
ought  to  belong.  Do  we  not  all  practice  thus  a 
physiognomy  which  is  not  all  guess-work  ? 

Among  these  diversities  of  mental  structure 
there  is  one,  which,  for  the  want  of  a  better  title 
adapted  to  the  present  purpose,  may  be  termed 
the  Calvinistic  order  of  mind.  That  is  to  say,  it 
takes  naturally  to  the  Calvinistic  class  of  creeds 
and  methods  of  working.     There  are  Calvinistic 


196  My  Portfolio, 

natures,  and  there  are  Arminian  natures.  Under 
circumstances  evenly  favorable  to  both  these  de- 
velopments of  thought,  a  very  large  class  of  men 
will  choose  one,  and  eschew  the  other,  by  an  in- 
stinct as  certain  as  that  which  induces  bees  to 
swarm,  and  beavers  to  build  dams. 

The  Calvinistic  order  of  mind  is  inclined  to  pro- 
found views  of  truth.  It  is  contemplative  before 
it  is  active  in  its  religious  tastes.  It  is  equable  in 
religious  emotion,  reverent  and  calm  in  its  modes 
of  worship,  given  to  looking  before  and  after,  to 
asking  for  and  seeing  the  reasons  of  things,  yet 
imbued  with  a  strong  element  of  faith,  which  is 
not  staggered  by  beliefs  which  border  hard  on 
contradictions.  Withal,  it  is  a  constructive  order 
of  mind.  It  works  in  dead  earnest,  and  works  out 
systems  of  things.  It  builds  for  permanence,  and 
looks  a  long  way  ahead  for  results.  If  you  want 
to  make  any  thing  eternal  in  human  affairs,  you 
must  build  into  it,  and  especially  under  it,  a  very 
large  proportion  of  the  Calvinistic  elements. 

To  this  order  of  mind,  several  Christian  denom- 
inations appeal  chiefly  for  support,  of  which  the 
two  most  eminent  in  English  and  American  his- 
tory are  the  Presbyterian  and  the  Congregational. 
This  single  point  of  unity  between  them  is  a  more 
imperial  power  over  them  both  than  all  their  dif- 
ferences put  together.  Start  the  two  contempora- 
neously in  a  new  community,  as  is  now  so  often 
done  on  our  Western  frontier,  and  they  must  live, 
if  at  all,  upon  precisely  the  same  elements  of  so- 


Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians.      197 

ciety.  Tliey  must  compete  for  the  same  families ; 
they  must  invite  the  same  leadership ;  and  in  the 
result  they  must  develop  in  that  community  the 
same  kind  of  religious  forces. 

That  law  of  our  religious  history  by  which  Con- 
gregationalists migrating  into  Presbyterian  com- 
munities have  so  largely  fallen  into  the  Presbyterian 
ranks,  lies  very  deep  in  the  natural  affinities  of  the 
two  sects.  It  is  no  sign  of  disloyalty.  It  is  illib- 
eral to  question  their  right  to  do  it,  or  to  censure 
them  for  doing  it.  They  obey  a  law  of  religious 
similitude  which  is  more  potent  and  valuable  to 
Christian  character  than  any  attachment  to  church 
polity  can  be  or  ought  to  be.  My  father,  in  New 
England,  lived  in  a  wooden  house  painted  white, 
with  green  blinds,  as  his  father  did  before  him. 
Shall  I,  therefore,  be  held  untrue  to  his  memory, 
and  faithless  to  his  home,  if,  when  I  remove  into  a 
clay  country,  destitute  of  timber  land,  I  choose  to 
live  in  a  brick  or  stone  house  not  painted  at  all  ? 

With  so  many  and  so  strong  lines  of  gravitation 
between  two  great  powers  of  Christendom,  why 
should  not  the  policy  of  both  invite  union  rather 
than  schism  ?  Does  not  the  new  spirit  of  union 
among  all  evangelical  denominations,  and  the  new 
pressure  from  without  which  is  crowding  them 
together,  demand  this  policy  specially  between 
these  two?  With  what  consistency  can  we  cry 
aloud  and  spare  not,  as  we  are  doing  to  our  Epis- 
copal and  Baptist  brethren,  who  constitute  the 
most  impregnable  fortresses  —  the  Ehrenbreitstein 


198  3Iy  Portfolio. 

and  Strasbourg  —  of  religious  seclusion,  if  we  will 
not  ourselves  embrace  each  other,  when  we  have 
so  little  in  our  fundamental  convictions  to  sepa- 
rate us  ? 


XXII. 

OONGKEGATIONALISTS  AND  PEESBYTEEIANS : 
METHODS  OP  UNION. 

How  can  the  policy  of  these  two  denominations 
towards  each  other  be  liberalized  without  sacrifice 
of  principles  sacred  to  either?  I  answer  briefly, 
in  the  following  ways,  if  in  no  other. 

1.  In  establishing  new  churches  in  the  Western 
frontier  States,  let  us  more  generously  yield  to 
the  law  of  majorities.  Abandon  the  wretched 
policy  of  building  two  churches  for  Presbyterian 
and  Congregational  weaklings  to  starve  in  and  to 
snarl  in  at  each  other  because  both  are  starving. 
Build  the  one  church,  and  let  the  majority  have 
it;  the  minority  giving  a  cordial  support.  A 
Union  Church,  under  such  circumstances,  does 
not  meet  the  case.  Indeed,  a  Union  Church  is  a 
misnomer  anywhere.  There  is  something  comical 
in  the  innocence  with  which  a  Congregational 
deacon  should  say,  as  no  respectable  deacon  ever 
did  say,  to  a  Presbyterian  elder,  "  Come  now,  let 
us  have  no  presbytery  and  no  council,  but  let  us 
come  together  and  manage  our  own  affairs  in  our 
own  way,  in  a  Union  Church."     We  must  not 

199 


200  My  Portfolio. 

expect  our  Presbyterian  friends  to  be  so  conven- 
iently short-sighted  as  not  to  see  that  that  is  Con- 
gregationalism distilled  to  the  very  "  proof-spirit " 
of  independency.  Nobody  wants  that,  unless  it 
be  the  Plymouth  Church  of  Brooklyn.  No,  not 
that  for  us.  Let  us  fairly  give  in  to  the  law  of 
majorities. 

2.  Why  not  encourage,  rather  than  resist,  the 
mutual  transfer  of  the  ministry  between  Congre- 
gational and  Presbyterian  pulpits?  The  Old 
Brick  Church  of  New  York  has  seldom  had  a 
pastor  not  trained  in  Andover  Seminary.  Three 
times  in  succession,  within  twenty  years,  it  has 
invited  to  its  pastorship  men  trained  in  Congre- 
gational schools,  and  thorough-bred  in  Congrega- 
tional traditions.  At  one  time  every  professor  in 
the  Union  Theological  Seminary  of  New  York, 
save  possibly  one,  was  a  man  of  Congregational 
birth  or  training ;  all  but  two  had  been  students 
in  Andover  Seminary ;  and  three  of  them  were 
once  Congregational  pastors.  Princeton  College 
and  Seminary,  too,  have  men,  once  Congregational 
pastors,  among  their  professors.  Why  is  not  this  as 
it  should  be  ? 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Central  Church 
of  Boston  and  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  of  New 
York  invite  Presbyterians  to  become  their  pastors, 
when  the  American  Board  calls  Dr.  Treat  from  a 
Presbyterian  church  to  be  its  secretary,  and  when 
Andover  Seminary  invites  the  Presbyterian  Dr. 
Skinner  to  its  rhetorical  chair,  why  is  not  this  as 


Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians.      201 

well?  Why  not  break  down  and  bury  all  iron 
barriers  between  the  two  sects?  Let  the  separa- 
tion be  but  by  a  willow  network.  More  even :  let 
it  be  but  an  invisible  line,  which  the  ministry  on 
either  side  may  cross  and  recross  as  unconsciously 
as  they  would  cross  the  line  of  the  meridian  in  a 
Cunard  steamer.  What  if  the  result  should  be 
that  Congregationalism  would  give  more  than  it 
would  receive?  What  does  that  signify,  except 
that  it  has  more  to  give  of  such  materials  as  the 
church  universal  wants  ?  The  most  creative  and 
self-diffusive  good  that  is  done  in  this  world  is 
that  of  which  the  doers  do  not  get  the  credit  to 
themselves,  but  in  the  doing  of  which  they  are 
buried  under  other  names.  Is  not  just  that  the 
history  of  Congregationalism,  indeed,  of  New- 
England  institutions  generally  ?  And  is  it  not 
the  glory  of  any  good  thing,  that  such  should  be 
its  mission  for  the  present  ?  The  resurrection  is 
to  come  by  and  by. 

3.  Why  not  apply  to  church-extension  by  these 
two  denominations  in  old  communities  the  same 
law  of  comity  which  foreign  missionary  boards 
recognize  in  their  treatment  of  each  other  ?  They 
hold  themselves  bound  in  honor  not  to  interfere 
with  each  other,  not  to  build  on  each  other's 
foundation,  not  to  disturb  in  the  heathen  mind 
each  other's  prestige.  When  the  ritualists  of  Eng- 
land sent  a  bishop,  gorgeous  with  ecclesiastical 
regalia,  to  tempt  the  Hawaiians  from  their  alle- 
giance to  their  Presbyterian  and  Congregational 


202  My  Portfolio, 

fathers,  the  American  Board  protested  against  it  as 
an  outrage ;  and  all  liberal  Episcopalians  in  Eng- 
land and  America  seconded  the  protest.  This  was 
as  it  should  have  been.  The  great  missionary  or- 
ganizations recognize  each  other,  not  as  rivals,  but 
as  friends ;  not  as  competitors,  but  as  co-workers. 
Each  leaves  to  another  its  chosen  field.  Neither 
insults  another  by  presuming  that  its  work  needs 
to  be  done  over  again ;  but  all  rejoice  in  the  suc- 
cess of  each  as  being  the  success  of  every  other. 
This  has  become  the  recognized  law  of  missionary 
comity,  as  well  established  as  any  law  of  nations. 
Why,  then,  is  not  the  principle  just  as  sound 
and  wise  when  applied  to  church  extension  by 
Presbyterians  and  Congregationalists  in  the  older 
States,  where  both  have  here  and  there  a  history 
of  success,  and  a  prestige,  which  it  is  an  evil  to 
disturb  ?  Why  should  a  Presbyterian  church  ever 
have  existed  in  New  England?  Why  should  a 
Congregational  church  have  ever  been  planted  in 
Pennsylvania  ?  Nothing  has  been  gained  by  either 
which  could  not  have  been  more  economically 
gained  by  the  dominant  denomination  first  in  pos- 
session of  the  field  and  of  the  hearts  of  the  people. 
There  is  always  more  or  less  of  needless  waste  of 
religious  forces,  when  a  denomination  must  work 
with  few  and  feeble  and  unknown  churches,  b}^ 
the  side  of  another  rich  and  great  and  compact, 
and  with  a  splendid  history  behind  it,  and  yet  so 
nearly  like  its  feeble  competitor,  that  the  world 
can  see  no  valid  reason  for  the  competition.     Na- 


Oongregationalists  and  Presbyterians.      203 

tional  traditions,  pride  of  ancestry,  attachment  to 
early  reminiscences,  are  not  sufficient  reasons  for 
starting  counter-currents  of  religious  sympathy. 
Said  Napoleon  to  the  French  Directory,  when 
they  talked  of  sending  another  general  into  Italy 
to  co-operate  with  him  in  the  command,  "  Do  not 
disturb  the  imity  of  military  power  in  Italy.  One 
bad  general  is  better  than  two  good  ones."  The 
event  proved  that  he  was  right.  When  will  the 
Church  be  as  wise  in  its  policy  of  denominational 
extension  ?  Is  it  to  be  never  till  Romish  unity 
by  its  terrific  conquests  drives  us  to  it? 

I  know  very  well  that  much  may  be  said  on 
the  more  narrowly  and  intensely  sectarian  side  of 
these  questions.  But  the  drift  of  the  public  mind 
runs  deep  and  strong  towards  the  submerging  of 
minor  diversities  among  Christians  who  are  essen- 
tially one.  God  has  a  meaning  in  this  imperative 
demand  for  union.  It  is  his  work  that  the  world 
wearies  of  Christian  alienations.  It  is  a  hint  of 
his  will  that  men  of  the  world  shrug  their  shoul- 
ders at  the  whole  idea  of  competition  among 
Christian  churches. 

If  I  do  not  misread  the  page  of  Providence, 
Christian  union  must  be  served  chiefly  in  two 
ways.  In  the  first  place,  those  sects,  which,  like 
the  Episcopal  and  the  Baptist,  have  intrenched 
themselves  behind  the  walls  of  one  or  two  dogmas 
which  the  rest  of  the  church  universal  can  not  ac- 
cept, have  a  work  of  simple  surrender  before  them. 
Those  two  non-essentials  —  close  communion  and 


204  My  Portfolio, 

apostolical  succession  —  must  be  given  up.  They 
are  foredoomed.  Those  two  denominations,  be  it 
said  in  all  kindness,  can  never  do  much  for  the 
cause  of  Christian  unity,  till  the  doom  of  those 
two  dogmas  is  seen  and  accepted.  In  the  second 
place,  other  sects,  like  the  two  discussed  in  these 
pages,  which  in  faith,  in  policy,  in  history,  and 
in  character,  are  so  nearly  one  that  a  century  has 
scarcely  taught  the  world  the  difference  between 
them,  must  become  one  in  every  thing  that  can 
excite  in  them  the  sense  of  alienation,  or  that  can 
make  the  world  sensible  of  the  spectacle  of  com- 
petition. Are  we  not  called  upon  therefore,  by  a 
voice  which  we  may  not  ignore  with  impunity,  to 
reconsider  questions  which  our  sectarian  wisdom, 
as  we  have  thought,  had  settled  for  ever  ?  Such 
union  as  is  here  contemplated  between  these  two 
great  branches  of  the  Church  would  inevitably  be 
the  precursor  of  other  and  grander  advances  to- 
ward the  fulfillment  of  our  Lord's  prayer,  "  that 
they  all  may  be  one." 


XXIII. 

THE  PEEAOHINa  OF  ALBERT  BAENES. 

The  effects  of  his  early  preaching  resembled 
those  of  the  later  preaching  of  Chalmers  at  Kil- 
many.  He  was  thoroughly  possessed  with  the 
spirit  of  the  early  revivals  of  New  England.  His 
preaching  was  always  expectant  of  revivals.  Yet 
he  worked  and  lived  at  the  antipodes  from  every 
thing  like  ranting  excitement.  He  relied  largely 
on  doctrinal  preaching  for  the  instrumental  forces 
of  such  awakenings.  One  of  the  most  fruitful 
revivals  that  blessed  his  ministry  followed  a  series 
of  discourses  on  the  doctrine  of  divine  decrees. 
The  sermon  for  which  he  was  first  arraigned  for 
heresy  was  a  doctrinal  epitome  of  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  grace.  It  was  entitled  "  The  Way  of 
Salvation,"  and  was  afterwards  expanded  into  a 
volume  of  thirty-six  discourses  bearing  the  same 
title.  He  preached  it  for  the  instruction  of  a 
large  class  of  recent  converts.  Yet  it  never  seemed 
to  occur  to  his  prosecutors  that  there  was  any 
thing  incongruous  in  calling  him  down  from  a 
powerful  work  of  the  grace  of  God  to  answer  to 
their  Book  of  Discipline. 

205 


206  My  Portfolio, 

At  Philadelphia,  whither  he  removed  from  his 
brief  pastorate  at  Morristown,  the  same  scenes 
were  repeated.  The  whoop  of  "  Heresy  !  "  was 
redoubled,  and  again  responded  to  by  the  outpour- 
ing of  the  Holy  Spirit.  "  The  Lord  answered  Job 
out  of  the  whirlwind."  There  was  something 
electric  in  the  current  of  his  early  ministrations 
in  Philadelphia.  They  produced  a  silent  upheaval 
of  the  elements  in  that  venerable  church.  Pro- 
fessing Christians  of  long  standing  gave  up  their 
religious  hopes,  under  the  searching  and  sifting 
ministry  of  the  3^oung  pastor.  His  three  published 
sermons,  entitled  "Enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ," 
I  know  to  have  been  prei3ared  and  preached  under 
the  conviction  that  certain  well-known  members 
of  his  church  were  unregenerate  men,  for  whose 
souls  he  must  give  account.  He  preached  to 
such  hearers  in  the  style  of  "  Edwards  on  the 
Affections." 

Some  of  his  eminent  parishioners  left  the  church, 
and  sought  repose  elsewhere  from  his  severe  fidel- 
ity. ,  One,  a  lawyer,  sought  refuge  in  the  Episcopal 
Church,  avowing  as  his  reason,  "  I  must  go  where 
I  can  enjoy  my  religion :  Mr.  Barnes  makes  me  feel 
that  I  haven't  any."  In  another  instance,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  church,  after  years  had  elapsed,  thus 
described  the  effect  of  Mr.  Barnes's  early  sermons 
upon  him,  as  I  recall  it,  substantially :  ''  I  was 
convicted  of  sin  as  I  had  never  been  before.  I 
saw  that  my  old  hope  was  a  false  one ;  and  oh, 
how  I  hated  the  man  for  so  breaking  up  my  peace ! 


The  Preacldng  of  Albert  Barnes.         207 

If  I  had  had  any  doubt  of  my  lost  state,  the 
enmity  of  my  heart  to  him  was  enough  to  unde- 
ceive me.  I  would  have  dismissed  him  in  a  week 
if  I  could ;  but  I  dared  not  say  a  word,  the  people 
loved  him  so.  And  so  I  fumed  and  raged,  carry- 
ing hell  within  me,  till  the  grace  of  God  broke  me 
down.  I  owe  my  soul  to  Albert  Barnes."  This 
gentleman  expressed  his  belief  that  there  were 
others  in  the  church  whose  religious  character 
underwent  a  similar  change.  I  have  some  reason 
to  think  that  Mr.  Barnes's  views  of  the  evidences 
of  conversion  underwent  some  modification  subse- 
quently ;  but  he  always  spoke  with  great  respect 
of  "  Edwards  on  the  Affections,"  and  his  preach- 
ing to  Christians  was  often  in  the  heart-searching 
vein  of  that  book. 

If  I  were  to  sum  up  in  brief  the  resources  of 
his  power  in  the  pulpit,  I  should  say  that  they 
were  centered  in  good  sense,  good  will,  and  good 
courage.  He  was  not  a  genius  in  any  of  the  com- 
mon acceptations  of  that  word.  He  had  neither 
the  brilliancy  nor  the  eccentricity  of  genius  in 
his  preacliing.  His  pulpit  was  burdened  by  no 
self-contradictions,  no  flings  at  creeds,  no  ranting 
about  character  as  opposed  to  orthodoxy,  and  no 
fogs  which  muddle  hearers  as  to  what  he  did 
believe.  He  did  not  love  the  pyrotechnic  school 
of  pulpit  eloquence.  Both  in  matter  and  manner 
he  was  one  of  the  calmest  men  I  ever  heard.  He 
stood  in  the  pulpit  like  a  statue,  rarely  moving 
any  thing   but  his  lips  and  his  e^'elids;  yet  for 


208  My  Portfolio. 

power  to  feel  his  way  inward  to  the  heart-strings 
of  hearers,  and  play  upon  them  at  will  "to  the 
Dorian  mood  of  flutes  and  soft  recorders,"  I  have 
never  heard  his  equal.  His  sermons  furnished  an 
admirable  illustration  of  his  own  classification  of 
the  theologies :  that  "  there  is  a  theology  which 
can,  and  a  theology  which  can  not,  he  preaehed^ 
He  tested  all  systems  by  the  pulpit.  Like  the 
greatest  theologians  of  all  ages,  and  the  truest,  in- 
spired and  uninspired,  he  was  first  a  preacher,  then 
a  theologian.  His  was  therefore  emphatically  the 
theology  which  can  he  preached,  —  a  sensible,  self- 
consistent,  well-poised,  and  large-hearted  theology  : 
biblical  in  its  proportions  as  well  as  in  its  princi- 
ples, and  therefore  consonant  with  the  necessary 
beliefs  of  men.  It  had  all  the  elements  of  a  work- 
ing theology ;  and  he  built  it  up,  and  buttressed  it 
and  adorned  it  with  an  inexhaustible  fund  of 
biblical  thought.  He  preached  it  with  inimitable 
candor  and  loveliness  of  spirit,  yet  with  a  still 
courage  which  feared  the  face  of  no  mortal  man. 

I  never  knew  another  man  who  could  pack  so 
much  thought  into  a  sermon,  and  yet  popularize 
it  all  so  thoroughly  that  all  classes  of  intellect 
could  understand  it,  and  all  hearts  feel  it.  I  have 
never  heard  another  preacher  who  could  say  such 
severe  things  without  a  word  of  splenetic  censure. 
He  resembled  John  Foster  in  his  power  of  "  pump- 
ing," as  Foster  used  to  call  it,  profound  thought 
up  to  the  surface  of  popular  speech ;  yet  he  did 
not,  like  Foster,  drive  his  audience  out  of  doors 


The  Preaching  of  Albert  Barnes.         209 

in  the  doing  of  it.  He  would  preach  a  sacramen- 
tal sermon  to  his  church  in  the  morning,  an  ex- 
temporaneous sermon  to  his  sabbath  school  in  the 
afternoon,  and  a  sermon  to  medical  students  in 
the  evening  of  the  same  day ;  and  all  three  dis' 
courses  seemed  strung  on  the  same  thread  of  phi- 
losophical and  biblical  suggestion,  yet  all  equally 
intelligible  and  interesting  to  the  hearers.  His 
doctrinal  sermons,  of  which  students  in  theology 
took  notes,  as  of  lectures  in  systematic  divinity,  — 
they  were  so  clear,  so  logical,  so  compact,  and 
so  exhaustive,  —  were  borrowed  and  copied  by  in- 
valid ladies  for  the  strength  and  good  cheer  they 
gave  in  the  sick-room.  His  versatility  of  adapta- 
tion was  something  wonderful.  To  a  looker-on  it 
became  a  study,  like  the  secret  marvels  of  vegeta- 
tion, which  astonishes  us  by  its  power  to  do  so 
many  things  so  well ;  and  like  that,  also,  was  his 
working  in  its  stillness. 

His  courage  was  of  the  unconscious  sort.  It 
was  no  exultant  foresight  of  victory,  but  the  art- 
less boldness  of  a  child.  Blustering  men  were 
apt  to  mistake  his  silence  for  timidity,  because  it 
was  his  way  to  let  such  men  have  their  soliloquy 
to  themselves.  His  book  on  American  slavery 
was  a  thesaurus  to  the  abolitionists  for  twenty 
years  ;  yet  their  unchristian  bravado  repelled  him 
from  co-operation  with  them.  He  often  said,  "  If 
a  good  cause  could  be  killed,  antislavery  would 
be  so,  by  the  intemperance  of  its  friends."  But 
he  preached  the  substance  of  his  book  to  his  peo- 


210  My  Portfolio. 

pie  at  a  time  when  millions  of  property  sat  along 
the  aisles  of  his  church,  coined  out  of  slave-labor 
on  cotton  and  rice  plantations.  He  did  it  with 
the  air  of  one  who  did  not  for  a  moment  conceive 
it  possible  to  do  any  thing  else.  He  was  a  prophet 
of  the  Lord,  sent  to  give  that  message,  and  he  gave 
it.  That  was  the  revealed  duty  of  the  hour,  and 
he  did  it.  His  more  timid  friends  trembled  for 
the  result,  but  not  he ;  and  I  doubt  whether  any- 
body ever  ventured  to  suggest  the  fear  to  him. 
Nobody  dared  to  organize  an  opposition  to  him  on 
that  ground ;  yet  I  often  heard  the  wish  expressed 
that  he  would  keep  his  antislavery  to  his  books, 
and  not  speak  it  in  the  pulpit.  He  was  not  the 
man  to  hoodwink  his  conscience  in  that  way.  In 
those  days  I  never  heard  a  sermon  from  him  on 
the  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  which  he  did  not 
mould  into  a  hot  shot  against  slavery. 

I  shall  never  forget  one  occasion  on  which  he 
thus  turned  the  battery  of  doctrinal  theology 
against  what  he  did  not  scruple  to  denounce  as 
"  the  accursed  system,"  on  which  "  Heaven  could 
never  smile."  Be  it  remembered  that  his  hearers 
were  soundly  orthodox  believers  in  the  West- 
minster Confession,  and  specially  in  the  central 
truth  of  the  atonement ;  yet  among  them  were  old 
slaveholders,  as  hearty  believers  in  the  necessity 
of  "  the  evil "  by  which  their  property  had  been 
amassed,  and  the  houses  of  their  children  had  been 
built,  and  beautified  with  all  that  money  could 
purchase,  and  culture  could  desire.     It  was  at  a 


The  Preaching  of  Albert  Barnes.         211 

time  —  in  those  days  Philadelphia  scarcely  ever 
knew  any  different  time  —  when  the  fight  waxed 
hot  between  the  friends  and  the  foes  of  slavehold- 
ing.  The  pulpits  were  not  few  in  which  silence 
reigned  on  the  whole  subject.  It  is  now  believed 
that  the  "irrepressible  conflict"  had  more  to  do 
than  any  thing  else  with  the  rupture  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church.  Some  preachers  of  high  repute 
had  words  of  censure  for  the  abolitionists  only. 
Mobs  were  rampant  against  free  speech  and  "  free 
niggers  "  alike.  William  Lloyd  Garrison's  life  was 
not  safe  in  Pennsylvania  Hall.  The  firemen  were 
forbidden  to  play  upon  that  hall  when  it  was  in 
flames.  The  provost  of  the  university  apologized 
blandly  for  the  murderers  of  Lovejoy  at  Alton. 
Probably  no  other  Northern  city  contained  so 
many  emigrant  slaveholders  from  the  South,  and 
so  many  runaway  slaves ;  and  no  other  was,  there- 
fore, so  difficult  a  spot  in  which  to  stand  up  and 
speak  for  the  slave  to  a  "  respectable  audience." 
But  it  was  precisely  the  spot,  and  those  were, 
above  all  others,  the  surroundings,  in  which  Mr. 
Barnes  could  do  no  otherwise  than  put  to  hazard 
his  reputation  and  his  influence  in  words  of  truth 
and  soberness.  His  theme  on  the  occasion  re- 
ferred to  was,  "  The  love  of  God  in  the  gift  of 
a  Saviour." 

He  first  showed  that  salvation  originated  in 
the  love  of  God ;  then,  that  it  was  the  grandest 
expression  of  love  of  which  a  finite  mind  could 
conceive ;  and,  finally,  that  it  was  planned  and 


212  My  Portfolio. 

executed  for  the  world.  In  the  first  two-thirds 
of  the  discourse,  he  interwove  argument  and 
illustration,  and  emotive  appeal,  and  most  tender 
soliloquy,  till  the  whole  house  was  hushed,  and 
many  eyes  were  swimming  at  the  thought  of  the 
love  of  an  Infinite  Heart  for  a  lost  soul.  The 
inherited  faith,  and  the  matured  convictions,  and 
the  personal  experiences,  of  his  hearers,  were  all 
committed  to  swell  the  current  of  sympathy  with 
the  preacher,  which  evidently  held  the  assembly 
fast.  Every  eye  was  fixed  upon  him ;  every  breath 
was  mute ;  the  very  children  looked  up,  awed  by 
the  presence  of  an  unseen  power,  as  his  melliflu- 
ous voice  rolled  out  like  the  vibrations  of  a  bell 
his  sonorous  and  welling  periods.  Then,  when 
the  still  excitement,  wliich  nothing  else  produces 
like  the  preaching  of  the  gospel,  seemed  to  be 
at  its  height,  —  as  if  human  feeling  could  rise  no 
higher,  and  could  bear  no  more,  —  he  lifted  up 
his  eyes,  and  glancing  around  till  every  corner  of 
the  house  seemed  as  if  penetrated  by  the  light  of 
God's  countenance,  and  summoned  to  hear  God's 
words,  with  the  single  sharp  perpendicular  blow 
of  the  right  hand  (one  of  the  only  two  ges- 
tures he  ever  used)  he  said,  "  And  I  love  to  feel, 
and  will  feel  —  it  makes  me  love  the  gospel 
more,  and  the  Saviour  more  —  that  for  the  black 
man  of  Africa  he  died,  whether  sunk  in  debase- 
ment on  his  native  shore  ...  or  whether  borne 
a  captive  across  the  ocean,  and  bound  down  by 
ignorance  and  toil  in  Christian  lands.     He  is  a 


The  Preaching  of  Albert  Barnes.         213 

man,  an  immortal  man,  a  redeemed  man,  and  not 
a  chattel  or  a  thing.  Christ  died  not  for  chattels 
and  for  things :  he  died  for  souls,  for  men,  for  im- 
mortal minds,  for  those  who  may  yet  burst  every 
shackle  and  every  bond,  and  range  the  world  of 
glory  as  immortal  freemen.  .  .  .  He  who  makes 
an  arrangement  by  which  any  class  of  men  is  ex- 
cluded from  the  gospel  invades  the  prerogative  of 
God,  prohibits  what  he  commands,  and  exposes 
himself  to  the  wrath  of  the  Almighty.  Any  sys- 
tem of  things  on  earth  which  prevents  the  fair 
promulgation  of  the  gospel  is  a  violation  of  the 
arrangements  of  Heaven,  and  will  sooner  or  later 
meet  the  curse  of  the  Most  High." 

The  effect  was  of  a  singular  sort,  such  as  I  have 
never  witnessed  before  or  since  in  a  magnetized 
assembly.  It  was  not  startling.  There  was  no 
outcry,  no  springing  to  the  feet,  no  speaking,  and 
responses  of  admiring  eyes.  But  the  stillness  sud- 
denly deepened  like  the  silence  of  the  elements 
which  precedes  an  earthquake ;  while  a  weight 
like  that  of  an  Atlantic  tidal  wave  seemed  to  roll 
in,  as  if  ingulfing  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
under  the  dread  anathema.  For  a  moment  we 
all  seemed  to  lie  there,  buried  "  deeper  than  ever 
plummet  sounded."  Then  came  a  positive  physi- 
cal relief  to  eyes  and  ears  and  lungs  and  heart, 
as  if  we  rose  again  into  our  native  air,  when  the 
preacher  fell  back  into  his  beautiful  colloquial 
style  and  tones,  like  the  gentle  pattering  of  the 
farewell  shower  when  the  storm  is  over.     I  have 


214  My  Portfolio, 

heard  many  sermons  on  the  atonement  since  that 
day,  and  many  diatribes  against  oppression,  but 
never  any  thing  like  that.  That  has  always  been 
my  heau  ideal  of  doctrinal  preaching.  Many  times 
during  the  war  of  the  rebellion  that  prophet's 
voice  sounded  again  in  my  ears  :  "  Sooner  or 
later,  the  curse  of  the  Most  High !  Sooner  or  later, 
the  curse  of  the  Most  High !  " 

It  was  difficult  for  an  appreciative  listener  to 
Mr.  Barnes  to  be  sensible,  at  the  time,  of  any  fault 
in  his  preaching,  such  was  his  winning  magnetism 
over  a  hearer,  and  so  nearly  faultless  seemed  the 
personal  character  of  the  man.  The  power  of  per- 
son was  supreme  among  the  factors  of  his  influ- 
ence in  the  pulpit.  I  doubt  whether  any  idolized 
pastor  was  ever  more  hallowed  than  he  in  the 
judgment  of  his  parishioners,  after  his  dominion 
among  them  had  had  time  to  consolidate  itself. 
"  I  have  known  him  now  for  twelve  years,"  said 
one  of  his  elders,  "  and  I  never  detected  in  him 
a  sin  or  a  folly."  Such  was  the  general  feeling 
at  the  time  of  which  I  write ;  and  this  reverent 
affection  for  the  man  reduplicated  the  power  of 
his  pulpit. 

But  there  were  two  things,  which,  it  seems  to 
me,  were  evils  in  their  bearing  upon  his  preaching. 
One  was  his  own  infidel  experience  in  his  early 
manhood.  He  made  no  secret  of  this.  He  often 
spoke  of  it  with  modest  sadness,  deprecating  its 
effect  upon  his  Christian  character ;  and  it  was  a 
favorite  effort  with  him  to  make  his  own  life  in 


The  Preaching  of  Albert  Barnes.         215 

that  respect  a  warning  to  other  young  men.  He 
used  to  say,  "  After  twenty  years  of,  as  I  hope, 
Christian  life,  my  mind  is  not  yet  clear  of  infidel 
habits  of  thinking  and  feeling."  No  one  else 
would  have  suspected  this,  if  he  had  not  disclosed 
it ;  but  the  effect  of  that  passage  in  his  life  which 
was  perceptible  to  others,  though  not  to  him,  was 
that  it  inclined  him  to  make  excessive  conces- 
sions to  infidelity,  and  to  preach  disproportion- 
ately upon  subjects  bearing  upon  the  phases  of 
the  infidel  argument.  His  candor  to  opponents 
sometimes  made  more  impression  than  his  argu- 
ment against  them.  In  his  eagerness  to  concede 
every  thing  that  could  be  fairly  claimed,  he  some- 
times granted  more  than  could  be  proved,  and 
the  after-process  of  building  up  his  faith  did  not 
always  undo  the  evil.  At  times,  also,  the  pro- 
portions of  his  preaching  were  more  largely  in 
the  line  of  Christian  polemics  than  the  experience 
of  his  hearers  needed.  He  built  upward  less 
than  he  laid  the  foundations  for. 

The  other  thing  which  sometimes  affected  his 
preaching  unfortunately  was  a  peculiarity  of  his 
temperament,  which  I  have  not  seen  noticed  in 
any  of  the  published  comments  upon  his  life  and 
works.  It  was  a  morbid  sensitiveness  to  suffering. 
The  spectacle  of  this  in  others  keenly  wounded 
and  depressed  him ;  and  the  thought  of  it,  as  per- 
vading so  largely  this  world  and  another  in  God's 
universe,  often  appalled  him.  Hence  his  remark- 
able "  Confessions,"  in  his  sermon  entitled  "  God 


216  My  Portfolio. 

worthy  of  Confidence,"  which  have  made  Univer- 
salists  and  infidels  exultant  over  his  theology.  "  I 
confess,"  he  says,  "  when  I  look  upon  a  world 
of  sinners  and  of  sufferers,  upon  death-beds  and 
graveyards,  upon  the  world  of  woe  filled  with 
hosts  to  suffer  for  ever  .  .  .  and  when  I  feel  that 
God  only  can  save  them,  and  yet  that  he  does 
not  do  it,  I  am  struck  dumb.  It  is  all  dark, 
dark,  dark,  to  my  soul,  and  I  can  not  disguise  it. 
In  the  distress  and  anguish  of  my  own  spirit  I 
confess  that  I  see  no  light  whatever.  I  have 
never  seen  a  particle  of  light  thrown  on  these 
subjects  that  has  given  a  moment's  ease  to  my 
tortured  mind." 

These  are  appalling  words  from  a  Christian 
pulpit.  One  can  not  wonder  that  infidelity  takes 
advantage  of  them  to  the  discredit  of  the  faith 
which  nurtured  them.  But  to  understand  them 
we  must  give  large  room  to  the  deep  and  gentle 
sensibilities  of  the  preacher.  Suffering  was  a  more 
profound  and  portentous  reality  to  his  soul  than 
to  the  average  of  men.  The  world  of  despair  was 
a  ghastly  anomaly  in  God's  universe.  He  preached 
it  without  flinching ;  but  those  sermons  were  sub- 
dued and  plaintive  in  their  tone,  —  the  wail  of  an 
agonized  spirit.  He  had  none  of  the  hardness  of 
an  athlete  in  his  make,  but  the  gentleness  of  a 
woman,  rather,  whom  "  the  winds  of  heaven  "  had 
never  been  permitted  to  "  visit  roughly."  When 
his  life-long  friend,  Matthias  Baldwin,  lay  upon  his 
death-bed,  Mr.  Barnes  threw  his  arms  around  his 


The  Preaching  of  Albert  Barnes,         217 

n-eck,  and  wept  aloud.  His  loving  nature  recoiled 
from  a  Draconian  theory  of  retribution.  He  was 
once  exhausted  almost  to  fainting  by  the  preach- 
ing of  a  sermon  upon  future  punishment.  I  never 
saw  him  shed  a  tear ;  but  I  have  no  doubt  that 
he  did  weep,  often  and  bitterly,  over  this  world's 
anguish  and  the  lost  world's  horrors. 

This  sensitiveness  to  suffering  disclosed  itself 
in  many  minor  ways.  He  could  take  no  pleasure 
in  the  recreations  of  sportsmen.  He  shrunk  from 
angling,  and  doubted  the  moral  rectitude  of  it  as 
an  amusement.  He  felt  at  times  a  mortal  aver- 
sion to  the  sea :  to  him  it  was  an  immense  burial- 
place.  He  thought  of  it  as  the  maelstrom  of 
wrecked  and  burning  ships,  with  their  helpless 
freight  of  men  and  women  and  children  and  babes. 
When  his  physician  advised  a  voyage  for  his  sal- 
vation from  threatened  blindness,  he  encountered 
the  perils  of  the  Atlantic  with  extreme  reluc- 
tance. Before  embarking,  he  discussed  with  his 
friends  the  point  of  casuistry,  —  whether  a  man 
might  rightly  seek  death  by  drowning  to  escape 
death  by  fire.  It  is  a  token  of  the  genial  rela- 
tions existing  between  him  and  his  friend  Dr. 
Brainerd,  that  the  latter  tried  to  amuse  his  de- 
jected spirits  by  telling  him  that  he  need  not  fear 
either ;  for  "  a  man  who  was  born  to  be  hanged 
would  never  be  drowned." 

While  this  peculiarity  of  his  temperament  did 
not  amount  to  any  thing  unmanly  in  the  common 
vocations  of  life,  I  think  it  did  sometimes  affect 


218  My  Portfolio. 

the  fiber  of  his  faith,  and  the  tone  of  his  preach- 
ing, on  divine  retribution.  He  could  not  preach 
it  exultingly.  The  argument  from  reason  in  de- 
fense of  it  made  no  impression  on  him  whatever. 
He  accepted  it  solely  as  a  revelation  from  God. 
It  was  to  him  a  profound  and  insoluble  mystery, 
into  the  philosophy  of  which  he  had  no  heart  to 
inquire. 

These  defects,  however,  if  they  must  be  called 
such,  were  but  spots  on  the  sun.  As  a  whole, 
his  pulpit  was  a  burning  and  shining  light  to  the 
Church  of  God.  But  few  such  illumine  her  his- 
tory. For  myself,  I  esteem  it  a  privilege  to  place 
on  record  my  own  grateful  sense  of  obligation  to 
him,  such  as  I  owe  to  no  other  man  but  one. 


XXIY. 

A  VACATION  WITH  DE.  BUSHNELL. 

Some  years  ago  it  was  my  privilege  to  spend 
the  major  part  of  a  summer  vacation  with  this 
rare  man  in  the  Green  Mountains.  Some  impres- 
sions which  I  received  of  his  mental  structure, 
and  of  his  theology,  and  of  his  religious  charac- 
ter, deserve  recording. 

He  was  visibly  worn  out  by  disease.  His  coun- 
tenance bore  the  look  of  distant  yet  fast-coming 
dissolution,  which  but  one  malady  gives  to  the 
human  eye.  Yet  he  was  as  full  of  courage,  as  full 
of  life  and  of  his  life's  work,  as  he  could  have 
been  when  thirty  years  yoimger.  Few  men  have 
ever  impressed  me  as  being  so  electric  with  vital- 
ity at  all  points  as  he  was.  He  was  an  enthusiast 
in  his  love  of  rural  sights  and  sounds  and  sports, 
in  little  things  as  brimful  as  in  great  things.  He 
seemed  the  heau  ideal  of  a  live  man.  The  su- 
premacy of  mind  over  body  was  something  won- 
derful. One  could  not  but  feel  a  new  assurance 
of  the  soul's  immortality  in  witnessing  the  easy 
and  unconscious  power  with  which  his  spirit 
swayed   the   physical  frame  which  was   secretly 

219 


220  My  Portfolio. 

enticing  him  down  to  the  grave.  For  seventeen 
3'ears  he  had  kept  death  at  bay :  and,  at  the  time 
I  speak  of,  medical  diagnosis  revealed  that  but 
one  lung  supported  his  remnant  of  life ;  yet  that 
semi-form  of  life  seemed  equal  to  the  prime  of 
many  a  hale  man.  The  abandon  of  his  recrea- 
tions in  the  bowling-alley,  where  he  was  a  boy 
again,  and  his  theological  talks  of  a  Sunday  even- 
ing, told  the  same  story.  "  Dying,  and  behold  we 
live,"  recurred  once  and  again  in  listening  to 
the  conversations  in  which  he  was  sure  to  be  the 
center  and  the  seer. 

I  have  never  heard  from  any  other  man,  in  the 
same  length  of  time,  so  much  of  original  remark. 
There  is  but  little  original  thought  in  this  world, 
at  the  best.  The  most  learned  of  us  have  often 
the  least  of  it.  At  forty-five  men  are  apt  to  find 
this  world,  as  the  author  of  Ecclesiastes  did,  very 
stale.  "  The  thing  which  hath  been,  it  is  that 
which  shall  be."  Only  now  and  then  a  thinker 
comes  along,  like  Coleridge  or  Isaac  Taylor,  so 
full  of  originality  that  he  creates  an  atmosphere 
laden  with  the  spices  of  other  worlds  around  him ; 
and  for  that  the  wise  men  of  the  East  call  him 
"  eccentric."  They  bring  incense  to  him  from  afar, 
nevertheless.  Prophets  and  apostles  are  always 
eccentric  men.  Doubtless  we  shall  find  Gabriel  an 
eccentric  spirit,  if  we  ever  get  within  sight  and 
hearing  of  him.  Somebody  must  do  the  work  of 
the  wise  men ;  but  for  spurring  us  out  of  our  jog- 
trot, and  for  revealing  our  wings  to  our  own  con- 


A   Vacation  with  Dr.  BushnelL  221 

sciousness,  and  for  teaching  us  our  first  flights, 
give  us  more  of  the  eccentric  men.  Rev.  Dr. 
Kirk  once  told  me  that  the  most  stimulating 
books  to  him  were  almost  all  heresy. 

One  of  the  eccentric  but  winged  spirits  was  Dr. 
BushnelL  It  was  not  his  way  to  talk  for  the  sake 
of  colloquial  courtesy.  He  never  made  conver- 
sation. He  would  not  assent  to  your  say  out  of 
conventional  politeness.  From  no  courtly  presence 
on  earth  could  he  ever  have  backed  out  with  meek 
obeisance.  Nothing  was  more  natural  to  him  than 
to  write  letters  of  advice  to  popes.  His  common 
talks  were  varied  by  similar  quaint  ways.  If  you 
said  a  silly  thing  or  a  dull  one,  you  must  carry  it : 
he  would  not  help  you  out  of  it.  If  he  had  him- 
self nothing  worth  saying  to  utter,  he  kept  silent. 
He  could  make  silence  mean  more  than  the  speech 
of  other  men.  Awkward  pauses  would  sometimes 
happen.  But,  when  he  spoke,  all  ears  were  alert 
with  the  assurance  that  they  should  hear  some- 
thing which  they  would  not  willingly  lose.  The 
cloud  in  the  western  sky,  the  shadow  on  Bread 
Loaf  Mountain,  the  song  of  the  oriole  in  the 
apple-tree,  the  trout  in  the  brook,  the  clover  in 
the  fields,  the  habits  of  the  mountain-ash,  were 
all  hints  to  his  mind  of  something  different  from 
their  suggestions  to  other  observers.  Language, 
too,  in  his  talk,  as  in  his  books,  he  used  often  not 
as  other  men. 

One  could  not  long  discourse  with  him,  even  on 
the  common  things  and  in  the  undress   of  life, 


222  My  Portfolio. 

without  discovering  the  secret  of  his  solitude  in 
the  theological  world.  That  solitude  was  not  in 
him,  as  it  is  in  some  men,  an  affectation  of  inde- 
pendence :  it  was  in  the  original  make  of  the  man. 
He  was  by  nature  a  solitaire  in  his  thinking.  Noth- 
ing struck  him  as  it  did  the  average  of  men.  He 
was  not  one  of  the  average.  He  took  in  all  things, 
and  reflected  back  all  things,  at  angles  of  his  own. 
He  never  could  have  been  a  partisan.  With  many 
of  the  tastes  of  leadership,  he  could  never  have  led 
a  party,  or  founded  a  school :  still  less  could  he 
have  been  a  follower  of  other  leaders.  It  was  not 
in  him  to  herd  with  his  kind.  He  recalled  to  one's 
thoughts  Wordsworth's  apostrophe  to  Milton ;  — 

"  Thy  soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart." 

At  the  time  I  mention,  he  was  preparing  for  the 
press  the  last  edition  of  his  work  on  the  "  Atone- 
ment." Several  times  he  spoke  of  it  as  the  only 
thing  for  which  he  desired  to  live.  He  brought 
the  unfinished  sheets  from  his  sick-room  to  the 
mountains,  hoping  to  gain  "  force  enough "  to 
"round  out"  his  views  by  his  latest  "insight." 
Other  subjects  of  theological  controversy  he  would 
have  been  glad  to  undertake,  for  on  them  all  he 
believed  that  he  had  conceptions  which  no  other 
man  had ;  but  he  would  say  of  them,  "  There  isn't 
force  enough  left  in  me  to  express  myself  upon 
them." 

It  was  obvious  that  his  own  ideal  of  his  life's 
work  was  that  of  discovery.     If  he  had  nothing  to 


A   Vacation  with  Dr.  BushnelL  223 

say  to  the  world  which  was  fresh  to  his  own  mind, 
he  had  nothing  worth  his  saying  or  the  world's 
hearing.  Some  men  spend  the  closing  years  of 
their  lives  in  gathering  up  and  labelling,  and 
storing  in  the  world's  libraries,  the  fruit  of  labors 
long  past,  and  which  to  themselves  have  become 
old.  Dr.  Bushnell  seemed  not  to  regard  exhumed 
accumulations  of  literature  as  worth  reviving.  A 
thought  once  buried  did  not  deserve  resuscitation. 
That  which  he  should  say  to  his  fellow-men  should 
be  as  new  to  himself  as  to  them.  When  he  had 
exhausted  his  power  of  discovery,  — his  "  insight," 
as  he  was  fond  of  calling  it,  —  he  had  lost  some  of 
the  prime  qualities  of  power  in  communication. 

There  is  some  truth  in  this.  The  fresh  mind  is 
the  magnetic  mind.  "  The  immortals  are  always 
young."  The  new  truth  is  the  fire  and  the  ham- 
mer. The  soul  which  is  aflame  with  latest  discov- 
ery is  the  light  which  the  world  waits  for.  To  the 
world  of  the  future  all  other  powers  knock  for 
admission  in  vain,  if  they  do  not  come  making 
obeisance  to  this  one.  Even  great  thinkers  have 
sometimes  outlived  their  life's  work.  Their  book 
has  come  too  late  for  a  docile  reading. 

The  mercurial  thinker  of  Hartford  held  and 
acted  upon  some  such  theory.  He  was  a  looker 
on  and  up  to  the  firmament  of  truth,  and  what- 
soever he  saw  there  he  proclaimed  to  the  waiting 
multitudes  below,  or  to  the  few  who  trusted  his 
vision.  When  the  vision  ended,  he  was  silent.  Of 
errors  in  his  published  opinions  he  spoke  as  freely 


224  3Iy  Portfolio, 

as  if  they  had  never  been  his.  "  If  I  see  men  as 
trees  walking,  I  do  not  know  that  it  is  my  fault." 
Not  till  the  superlative  vision  was  vouchsafed  to 
him  was  it  his  mission  to  tell  that.  The  vital 
thing  was  the  latest  discovery.  "The  prophet 
that  hath  a  dream  let  him  tell  a  dream."  He  was 
em^Dhatically  a  seer,  not  a  reasoner.  The  last  and 
least  thing  that  concerned  him  was  the  consis- 
tency of  his  present  with  his  past  opinions,  or  of 
either  with  the  revelation  of  to-morrow. 

He  cherished  a  profound  disrespect  for  over- 
grown libraries.  He  would  have  assented  to  the 
judgment  of  those  who  have  thought  that  the  burn- 
ing of  the  Alexandrian  Library  was  probably  no 
loss  to  the  world,  and  that  perhaps  a  large  part  of 
the  libraries  of  the  British  Museum  and  of  Paris 
could  not  be  worth  their  storage.  Psychologi- 
cally, his  mind  was  such  as  the  Grecian  mythol- 
ogy represented  in  the  sibyls,  and  such  as  a  purer 
revelation  might  naturally  elect  as  its  prophet. 
If  he  had  been  a  pupil  of  Socrates,  he  would  have 
had  absolute  faith  in  the  "  Demon."  In  this  pro- 
phetic and  intuitive  working  of  his  mind,  though 
in  other  respects  no  two  men  could  be  more 
unlike,  he  reminded  me  strongly  of  Professor 
Stuart. 

"  What  does  Dr.  Bushnell  mean? "  was  the  title 
of  one  of  the  earliest  and  best  criticisms  of  his 
theology,  by  Dr.  Goodrich  of  New  Haven.  The 
inquiry,  in  substance,  has  been  the  first  on  the  lips 
of  his  critics  ever  since.     It  was  central  in  my  very 


A   Vacation  with  Dr.  Buslinell.  225 

few  theological  talks  with  him.  He  was  one  of 
the  men,  like  Hegel,  whose  misfortune  and  whose 
fault  it  is  never  to  be  understood  to  their  liking. 

He  honestly  believed,  that,  in  his  divergence 
from  the  popular  theology  upon  the  philosophy  of 
the  atonement,  he  retained  all  that  is  essential  to  a 
saving  faith.  Not  only  this,  but  he  believed  that 
he  retained  more  of  the  truth  than  his  critics  did. 
His  divergence  was  no  divergence,  but  only  a  deep- 
ening of  the  old  faith.  It  was  a  delving  into  a 
vein  of  underlying  gold.  More  even  than  this : 
he  thought  he  was  nearer  to  the  fountain-head 
of  the  very  doctrine  which  his  critics  were  trying 
to  conserve  than  they  were  themselves.  In  their 
imagined  conflict  with  himself,  he  thought,  that,  to 
a  large  extent,  they  battled  with  men  of  straw  of 
their  own  creating.  What  they  meant  by  "  vica- 
rious sacrifice  "  he  meant,  and  a  great  deal  more  : 
so  much  more,  that  his  meaning  outgrew  and  wore 
out  the  ancient  phrase.  He  could  afford,  there- 
fore, to  speak  very  genially  of  his  opponents. 
They  were,  in  his  view,  unconscious  co-workers 
with  him,  so  far  as  they  knew.  The  difference 
between  them  and  him  was  only  that  he  knew 
much  more.  His  drill  had  penetrated  a  deeper 
vein  of  purer  treasure.  He  had  "entered  into 
the  springs  of  the  sea."  He  had  discovered  "  the 
way  where  light  dwelleth."  They  preached  Christ, 
but  he  more  profoundly.  "  What  then  ?  Not- 
withstanding, every  way,  Christ  is  preached,  and 
I  rejoice."     Such  was  his  apostolic  mood. 


226  My  Portfolio. 

He  spoke  of  the  first  edition  of  "  The  Vicarious 
Sacrifice  "  as  erroneous,  in  the  sense  of  being  but 
a  partial  vision,  yet  true  enough  so  far  as  it  went. 
Of  the  revision  of  it,  on  which  he  was  then  en- 
gaged, he  spoke  as  likely  to  be  regarded  by  his 
readers  as  a  return  towards  the  current  evangeli- 
cal faith,  so  far,  at  least,  as  it  should  be  understood 
by  them.  It  was  amusing  to  see  the  simplicity 
with  which  he  distinguished  between  his  real  faith 
and  that  eidolon  of  it  which  words  could  convey  to 
readers.  Language  was  to  him,  at  the  best,  but  a 
wretched  make-shift  for  the  conveyance  of  thought. 
He  probably  would  have  agreed  with  those  who 
conjecture  that  perhaps,  in  heaven,  pure  music 
will  be  a  medium  of  expressing  thought,  superior 
to  the  most  perfect  of  human  dialects. 

On  the  whole,  he  made  upon  me  the  impression 
of  a  mind  still  in  movement  on  the  central  theme  of 
the  Christian  faith ;  not  doubtful,  so  far  as  he  had 
discovered,  yet  not  resting  in  ultimate  convictions. 
More  than  once,  his  explanations  and  qualifications, 
and  quaint  uses  of  language,  suggested  to  me  the 
conjecture,  that,  if  he  could  have  years  more  of 
study  and  of  disciplinary  experience,  he  might 
come  around,  through  paths  and  by-paths  of  his 
own,  to  faith  in  the  very  dogmas  which  he  was 
then  combating.  It  is  not  always  the  truth  which 
an  inquirer  disbelieves,  but  the  angles  and  refrac- 
tions through  which  minds  differently  constituted 
have  come  at  the  truth.  Give  him  time,  and  do 
not  badger  him  with  hard  names,  and  he  will  often 


A    Vacation  with  Dr.  Bushnell.  227 

discover  truth  through  lenses  and  prisms  of  his 
own  making. 

At  any  rate,  Dr.  Bushnell  claimed  to  be  a  be- 
liever, if  an  eccentric  one,  in  the  faith  of  the 
fathers.  He  held  himself  to  be  substantially  at 
one  with  the  great  body  of  the  Church  in  all  that 
they  really  believed  of  the  "faith  in  Christ."  Yet 
whether  lie  was  so  or  not  concerned  him  little. 
Truth  lay  between  him  and  God,  not  between 
him  and  the  Church.  He  v.^as  simply  one  of  God's 
seers.  He  was  commissioned  to  paint  the  vision 
precisely  as  he  saw  it  in  the  mount.  The  recep- 
tion of  it  by  other  minds  was  their  affair,  not  his. 
Such,  as  nearly  as  I  could  gather  it  from  our  few 
and  fragmentary  conversations,  was  his  theory  of 
the  true  work  of  a  theologian,  rather  of  his  work 
as  a  theologian ;  for  he  was  very  gentle  in  his 
criticisms  of  the  work  of  other  men.  He  had  his 
own  telescope,  and  they  had  theirs :  that  the  in- 
struments differed  was  no  evidence  that  both  might 
not  be  true  :  the  field  of  vision  was  very  broad.  I 
am  confident  that  he  has  gone  from  us  with  no 
such  idea  of  his  own  dissent  from  the  faith  of  his 
brethren  as  they  have. 

And  the  sense  of  that  dissent,  I  must  confess, 
grew  dim  in  my  own  mind  when  I  came  near  to 
the  inner  spirit  of  the  man.  That  was  beautifully 
and  profoundly  Christlike,  if  that  of  uninspired 
man  ever  was.  Be  the  forms  of  his  belief  what 
they  may  have  been,  he  was  eminently  a  man  of 
God.     Christ  was  a  reality  to  him.     Christ  lived 


228  My  Portfolio. 

in  liim  to  a  degree  realized  only  in  the  life  of 
devout  believers.  I  had  heard  him  criticised  as 
brusk  in  manner,  even  rude  in  his  controversial 
dissents.  Scarcely  a  shade  of  that  kind  was  per- 
ceptible in  him  at  that  time.  The  gentleness  of 
womanhood  breathed  in  his  few  and  cautious 
expressions  of  Christian  feeling.  Of  the  sure 
coming  of  death  he  spoke  reservedly,  but  \vith 
unqualified  trust.  The  charity  of  a  large  fraternal 
heart  characterized  his  judgments  of  men.  His 
whole  bearing  was  that  of  one  whom  time  and 
suffering  had  advanced  far  on  towards  the  closing 
stages  of  earthly  discipline. 

Now  and  then  a  glimpse  appeared  of  rougher 
speech  ;  as  when,  objecting  to  the  use  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer  in  public  worship,  he  condensed  the  whole 
argument  against  it  by  saying  rather  gruffly  to  an 
Episcopal  friend,  "I  don't  want  to  say  prayers,  I 
want  to  pray'''  But  his  general  bearing  was  that 
of  one  whom  life  had  chastened  to  the  utmost,  and 
who  was  then  walking  thoughtfully  far  down  the 
valle}^  of  gentle  shadows.  We  discussed  some  of 
his  clerical  critics,  who  have  handled  his  opinions 
without  lenity,  and  I  do  not  recall  from  him  a 
single  caustic  judgment  of  one  of  them. 

Differing  from  him  essentially,  as  I  supposed,  in 
his  theory  of  the  atonement,  I  still  could  not  but 
see,  that,  in  its  effects  upon  his  personal  character, 
that  theory  had  been  to  him  apparently  just  what 
the  faith  of  other  believers  in  Christ  is  to  them. 
It  was  indeed  no  theory :  it  was  a  faith  and  a  life. 


A   Vacation  ivith  Dr.  BushnelL  229 

Few  men  have  I  known  to  whom  Christ  as  a  Sav- 
iour seemed  to  be  so  profound  a  reality  as  to  him. 
Christ  had  been  obviously  the  center  of  his  think- 
ing and  believing  for  twoscore  years.  The  results 
had  come  to  him  in  answer  to  the  inquiries  of  a 
struggling  spirit.  In  no  other  answer  could  he 
find  rest ;  but  in  that  he  did  rest  with  a  trust  as 
deep  and  calm  as  I  have  ever  heard  from  the  lips 
of  a  believer. 

His  theory  of  the  impotence  of  language  was  as 
vividly  illustrated  in  his  expression  of  personal 
faith  in  Christ  as  in  that  of  any  mystery  of  theol- 
ogy. Some  of  his  published  utterances  to  that 
effect  take  on  a  new  significance  to  one  whose 
imagination  can  reproduce  the  melting  eye  and  the 
subdued  pathos  of  love  with  which  he  repeated 
them  in  the  stillness  of  the  evening  and  among 
the  shadows  of  the  mountain.  To  the  hope 
which  I  once  expressed,  that,  in  his  revision  of 
his  volume,  he  would  hold  fast  to  the  faith  in  a 
divine  sacrifice  for  sin,  he  replied  with  inimitable 
emphasis,  "  I  do  hold  it  fast." 

What  shall  we  say  of  such  men  in  our  theo- 
logical classifications?  Where  shall  we  locate 
them  in  the  schools  ?  It  will  never  do  to  set  them 
aside  as  heretics,  and  leave  them  there.  In  char- 
acter they  are  better  than  their  infirm  and  eccen- 
tric beliefs  are.  Let  us  find  a  place  for  them  near 
to  our  hearts,  so  far  as  they  are  near  to  Christ. 


XXY. 

PEAYER  VIEWED  IN  THE  LIGHT  OP  THE  OHEIS- 
TIAN  CONSCIOUSNESS. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Norman  McLeod  records  in  his 
journal  this  sentiment,  "  The  poorest  man  who  is 
great  in  prayer  is,  perhaps,  a  greater  man  in 
affecting  the  destmies  of  the  world  than  the  Em- 
peror of  Russia."  This  to  thoughtful  Christians 
is  a  truth  familiar  on  the  verge  of  commonjDlace. 
But  it  falls  on  the  ears  of  an  incredulous  world. 
Men  ask  what  evidence  we  have  to  support  such 
astounding  pretensions.  We  draw,  in  part,  upon 
the  conscious  experience  of  believers  for  an  an- 
swer. 

1.  The  consciousness  of  praying  men  bears  wit- 
ness that  the  evidence  of  the  jpoioer  of  prayer  is  all 
that  the  case  admits  of.  The  world  laughed  at  a 
theologian,  who,  a  few  years  ago,  essayed  to  prove 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  by  the  formulae  of 
trigonometry,  and  the  freedom  of  the  will  by  the 
oscillations  of  a  pendulum. 

The  principle  here  involved  governs  the  evi- 
dence of  the  reality  of  prayer.  It  is  not  mathe- 
matically demonstrable.     Triangles  can  not  prove 

230 


Christian  Experience  in  Prayer.  231 

it.  The  civil  engineer  can  not  estimate  it.  The 
strength  of  it  can  not  be  tested  as  you  would  test 
the  strength  of  a  suspension-bridge.  The  nature 
of  the  things  concerned  rules  out  all  that  kind  of 
evidence.  The  Christian  consciousness  finds  with- 
in itself  spiritual  facts  witnessing  to  spiritual 
power.  It  trusts  those  facts.  Why  not?  Why 
is  not  your  soul's  vision  of  truth  as  credible  as 
the  sight  of  your  eyeball?  Why  must  I  accept 
the  testimony  of  my  optic  nerve,  with  which  I 
have  often  seen  double,  and  reject  my  inner  con- 
sciousness of  things  of  which  I  can  take  cogni- 
zance in  no  other  way  ?  Like  witnesseth  to  like  ; 
matter  to  matter ;  spirit  to  spirit.  Tliis  is  the  law 
both  of  reason  and  of  faith.  God  is  not  in  the 
wind,  nor  in  the  tempest,  nor  in  the  fire,  but  in 
the  still  small  voice. 

2.  The  Christian  consciousness  confirms  the  fact, 
which  all  prayer  assumes,  of  direct  communion  be- 
tween the  human  mind  and  the  mind  of  God.  Vary- 
ing in  degree  of  vividness,  this  witness  of  spirit  to 
spirit  is,  perhaps,  the  most  uniform  experience  of 
real  prayer.  The  believer  is  conscious  of  exercises 
which  he  can  not  attribute  to  any  other  cause  than 
the  real  and  personal  agency  of  God. 

Tlioughts  are  often  suggested  which  the  believer 
feels  that  he  did  not  originate.  Preachers  have 
told  us  of  such  mental  illumination  in  prayer,  by 
which  obscure  texts  of  Scripture  have  been  lighted 
up,  difficult  plans  of  sermons  have  been  opened  to 
them  with  an  affluence  of  material,  and  a  sudden- 


232  My  Portfolio, 

ness  of  development  which  impress  them  irresis- 
tibly with  the  conviction,  "  This  is  the  work  of 
God ;  this  is  the  teaching  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  this 
is  the  fulfillment  of  the  promise,  '  It  shall  be  given 
you  what  ye  shall  say.' "  The  Rev.  Dr.  Finney 
more  than  once  cast  aside  the  elaborated  sermon 
which  he  had  brought  to  the  pulpit,  to  make  room 
for  another,  on  a  new  text  and  a  different  theme, 
which  seemed  to  be  revealed  to  him  in  the  preced- 
ing prayer. 

JEmotions  often  fill  the  praying  soul  which  we 
can  not  otherwise  as  rationally  account  for  as  by 
the  simple  fact  that  the  Infinite  One  is  present, 
drawing  the  suppliant  to  communion  with  himself. 
"  The  Lord  is  in  this  place,"  said  the  awestruck 
patriarch.  That  feeling  in  a  believer's  soul  often 
has  the  vividness  of  vision.  A  voice  proclaiming 
the  fact  from  the  heavens  would  not  be  more 
convincing. 

Revolutions  of  feeling  often  occur  in  prayer,  of 
which  the  most  probable  explanation  is,  that  they 
are  the  work  of  God.  Hope  takes  the  place  of 
despondency.  Love  displaces  fear.  Rest  follows 
self-conflict.  Trust  expels  forebodings.  Assur- 
ance of  pardon  lifts  off  suddenly  the  leaden  weight 
of  guilt.  Remorse  transformed  to  penitent  faith 
is  one  of  the  most  revolutionary  changes  of  which 
the  human  spirit  is  susceptible.  Poetry  and  ro- 
mance discover  nothing  else  like  it  in  the  history 
of  human  passions.  Yet  this  is  one  of  the  most 
common  experiences  of  believing  prayer. 


Christian  Experience  in  Prayer.  233 

Conversion  is  often  one  of  the  facts  of  prayer. 
A  sinner  kneels,  oppressed  by  guilt,  in  fear  of  hell, 
self-degraded  beyond  the  reach  of  language  to  por- 
tray, crushed  by  the  accumulated  wrath  of  God, 
raging,  it  may  be,  with  impotent  resistance  to 
Almighty  Will.  Then  a  change  comes  over  the 
suffering  and  guilty  spirit.  Penitence  rises;  tears 
flow ;  hope  dawns  ;  trust  springs ;  love,  joy,  peace, 
well  up  from  secret  depths  never  before  unsealed. 
Something  has  stilled  the  storm.  Some  power  has 
said  to  the  angry  waters,  '-'-  Peace,"  and  there  is  a 
great  calm.  The  man  seems  to  himself  to  have 
been  a  helpless  recipient  in  the  change.  The 
consciousness  of  God  in  it  so  overwhelms  all 
consciousness  of  self,  that  the  soul  thinks  of  and 
feels  none  else  than  God. 

Poiver  of  speech  is  often  marvelously  quickened 
in  prayer.  Emotions  which  the  soul  has  strug- 
gled with  long  and  painfully  find  sudden  outlet  in 
language  of  which  the  praying  one  never  con- 
ceived before.  Some  men  can  habitually  speak  in 
prayer  as  nowhere  else.  An  unlettered  Christian 
was  once  summoned  into  court  in  a  trial  in  which 
he  had  much  at  stake.  He  was  called  upon  to  tell 
his  own  story.  He  was  flustered,  he  stammered, 
he  repeated  and  contradicted  himself,  and  was  in 
danger  of  losing  his  case  for  want  of  the  power  of 
utterance.  He  knew  himself,  and  knew  that  there 
was  one  act  in  which  he  could  talk.  He  begged 
of  the  judge  liberty  to  pray.  It  was  granted. 
He  knelt  down,  and  with  flowing  tears  poured  out 


234  My  Portfolio, 

his  case  before  the  Lord  in  language  clear,  cohe- 
rent, fluent,  and  convincing  to  the  jury.  Be  this 
story  literally  true  or  not,  it  illustrates  a  fact 
well  known  to  believers  in  the  reality  of  prayer. 
A  man  is  known  to  me,  who  in  common  life 
is  an  incorrigible  stammerer :  he  can  not  say  a 
word  without  making  it  three.  He  is  the  butt  of 
mimics.  But  in  prayer  his  utterance  is  Cicero- 
nian. Few  men  can  mimic  him  in  that.  One 
prayer  offered  by  the  late  Professor  Stuart  more 
than  forty  years  ago  is  still  remembered,  and 
fragments  of  it  rehearsed,  as  a  most  thrilling 
approach  to  apostolic  inspiration. 

"  The  Spirit  helpeth  our  infirmities."  How 
often  does  the  promise  come  home  to  the  strug- 
gling suppliant,  as  a  fact  revealed  !  Apostles  had 
no  monopoly  of  it.  Leaders  in  public  worship  to 
whom  the  service  is  a  cross  and  a  terror,  do  you 
know  nothing  of  this  unsealing  of  the  dumb  lips, 
this  inspiration  of  the  silent  tongue  ?  Has  it  not 
sometimes  been  to  you  like  a  burst  of  sunlight 
on  a  wintry  sea  ?  Has  not  the  outbreak  of  tri- 
umphant song,  in  the  hymn  that  followed,  been 
your  own  irrepressible  offering  of  thanksgiving? 
Youthful  preachers  know,  or  will  know,  what  I 
mean. 

But  can  not  these  phenomena  result  from  the 
unaided  working  of  the  human  mind  ?  Oh,  yes  ! 
they  ca7i.  Sometimes,  perhaps,  they  do.  We  can 
afford  large  concessions.  But  the  point  to  which 
the  Christian  consciousness  bears  witness  is,  that 


Christian  Uxperience  in  Prater.  235 

commonly  they  are  more  naturally  explained  by 
the  li3^pothesis  of  the  real  presence  and  the  direct 
agency  of  God. 

3.  The  Christian  experience  testifies  also  to  the 
fact  that  prayer  is  adequate  to  the  achievement  of 
results  in  real  life  which  are  intrinsically  marvel- 
ous and  improbable.  The  effects  which  follow 
prayer  seem  often  intrinsically  impossible.  They 
are  not  to  be  accounted  for,  except  on  the  suppo- 
sition that  prayer  has  set  in  motion  occult  forces 
of  immeasurable  reach. 

Christians  very  well  understand  that  phenome- 
non of  mystery  to  statesmen,  —  that  war  is  singu- 
larly uncertain  in  its  issues.  Those  most  learned 
in  military  science  are  most  cautious  in  predicting 
the  effects  of  military  causes.  The  issues  of  battles 
are  often  strange  and  inscrutable.  The  battle  is 
not  to  the  strong.  The  race  is  not  to  the  swift. 
It  is  not  the  way  of  fate  to  favor  the  strongest 
battalions.  So  largely  does  this  mystery  compli- 
cate the  conflicts  of  arms,  that  men  make  great 
account  of  what  they  call  the  fortunes  of  war. 
Gen.  Von  Moltke  names  as  one  of  the  four  great 
essentials  of  a  successful  general  "good  luck." 
Such  is  the  world's  way  of  recognizing  the  fact, 
that  there  are  unknown  and  undiscoverable  pow- 
ers in  the  universe  which  often  defeat  the  cam- 
paigns of  great  captains.  Modern  armies  suffer 
jmnics^  of  which  the  most  natural  explanation  is 
the  descent  of  invisible  auxiliaries  like  those 
whi(3h  scattered  the  army  of  Sennacherib  in  a 
night. 


236  My  Portfolio, 

Such  facts  fall  in  with  Christian  experience  in 
prayer.  The  Christian  consciousness  understands 
and  confirms  them.  They  are  of  a  piece  with  the 
individual  Christian  life.  That  is  full  of  things 
similar  on  a  smaller  scale,  —  things  which  prayer 
seems  to  have  called  down  from  that  secret  world 
of  spiritual  causes.  We  believe  it  because  we 
can  not  help  it.  We  know  it  to  be  just  like  God. 
The  sick  are  often  restored  to  health  in  opposition 
to  the  probable  course  of  disease.  The  peril  of 
shipwreck  is  often  averted  against  the  probable 
triumph  of  the  storm.  Professional  successes  are 
often  given  in  excess  of  all  reasonable  hopes. 
Deliverance  is  often  thrust  in  by  an  unseen  Hand 
from  sudden  and  unlooked-for  calamities.  Ways 
of  usefulness  are  often  opened,  as  if  by  invisible 
allies,  beyond  even  a  young  man's  sanguine 
expectations.  These  things  happen  in  apparent 
answer  to  persistent  and  believing  prayer.  No 
other  conceivable  cause  of  them  is  adequate  to 
explain  them.  Christians  would  not  be  sensible 
men  if  they  should  refuse  to  recognize  this  divine 
intervention  in  response  to  prayer,  as  one  of  the 
laws  of  real  life.  Their  experience  proceeds  just 
as  z/the  promise  were  a  real  one:  "He  shall  give 
his  angels  charge  over  thee  to  keep  thee." 

The  speed  of  such  responses  to  prayer  is  often 
a  fact  which  it  is  impossible  to  ignore.  They 
surprise  us  in  the  very  act  of  prayer.  Many  a 
believer  might  write  his  own  experience,  almost 
in  the  very  words  of  Daniel :  "  While  I  was  yet 


Christian  Experience  in  Prayer.  237 

speaking  in  prayer,  the  man  Gabriel,  being  caused 
to  fly  swiftly^  touched  me." 

The  point  which,  again.  Christian  experience 
would  underscore,  is,  that  the  evidence  of  these 
things  is  all  that  the  case  admits  of.  It  appeals 
to  faith,  as  we  should  suppose  it  would  do.  The 
want  of  uniformity  in  such  experiences  is  no 
greater,  the  failures  of  prayer  are  no  more, 
than  in  the  nature  of  the  things  and  agencies 
involved  we  should  anticipate.  In  number,  in 
degree,  in  kind,  the  evidences  are  all  that  could 
be  reasonably  looked  for,  —  no  more,  no  less,  no 
other. 

4.  If  my  space  would  permit,  the  fact  would 
demand  more  extended  notice,  that  the  Christian 
consciousness  of  prayer  and  its  results  leaves  the 
impression  on  devout  minds  that  prayer  has  com- 
mand of  an  immense  reserve  of  yet  undeveloped 
resources.  Thus  far  it  has  but  peered  over  the 
border  of  the  undiscovered  country.  The  Chris- 
tian Church  has  but  looked  at  it  from  the  summit 
of  Pisgah.  Prayer  suggests  the  existence  of  in- 
numerable hosts  of  agencies  of  unknown  power. 
Possibilities  of  achievement  in  the  future  seem 
limitless.  Mountains  leaping  into  the  sea  are 
none  too  strong  an  emblem  of  the  realities  of 
coming  ages.  This  unseen,  noiseless  power  seems 
not  half  developed,  because  not  half  used.  Invis- 
ible battalions  seem  hovering  in  the  air,  waiting 
to  do  battle  at  its  bidding.  Occult  agencies  of 
Nature  seem  but  its  servitors.     The  chief  thing 


238  My  Portfolio. 

which  makes  the  moral  regeneration  of  this  world 
appear  possible  is  the  reality  of  this  power  with 
God,  to  which  he  has  revealed  no  end  in  time, 
and  no  limit  in  the  reach  of  its  achievement. 


XXYI. 

INTEEOESSOEY  PEAYEE. 

Is  it  a  living  power  in  Christian  experience  ? 
The  following  fragment  of  religious  history  gives 
answer. 

A  lady  residing  not  a  thousand  miles  from  Rich- 
mond, Va.,  has  been  for  many  years  an  invalid. 
She  is  a  woman  of  rare  character,  possessing  more 
than  the  usual  culture  of  educated  minds,  keen  in 
her  judgment,  self-contained  in  her  impulses,  and 
very  far  from  being,  either  by  nature  or  training, 
a  fanatic. 

Being  debarred  by  the  state  of  her  health  from 
some  of  the  common  forms  of  Christian  service, 
she  has  adopted  the  habit  of  silent  intercessioii  as 
a  means  of  usefulness.  With  a  woman's  faith  in 
God  as  the  hearer  of  prayer,  she  has  been  wont  to 
pray  for  everybody  who  has  come  within  her  reach 
with  any  special  claim  to  her  interest.  Friends, 
acquaintances,  strangers,  persons  whom  she  meets 
for  an  hour  only,  and  has  no  prospect  of  meeting 
again,  she  quietly  presents  before  God  in  prayer 
for  whatever  they  seem  to  her  to  need  most  ur- 
gently.    A  stranger  with  whom  she  converses  for 

239 


240  My  Portfolio. 

a  half-hour  at  a  social  gathering,  a  guest  whom 
she  entertains  for  a  day,  a  person  whose  counte- 
nance impresses  her  in  the  street,  a  traveler  in  the 
cars  whose  conversation  attracts  her,  —  in  brief, 
anybody  to  whom,  for  any  reason,  her  attention  is 
drawn  with  special  regard,  —  she  remembers  in 
special  prayer. 

Probably,  without  having  ever  defined  a  theory 
about  it  to  her  own  mind,  she  has  the  theory  that 
whatever  interests  her  as  a  child  of  God  interests 
him  as  her  Father.  Prayer  becomes,  then,  her 
natural  method  of  expressing  that  interest  to  God 
daily,  and  often  hourly.  Communion  with  God 
expresses  it  as  artlessly  as  conversation  would  to 
an  earthly  friend.  Her  daily  life,  therefore,  is  a 
line  of  telegraphic  correspondence  between  this 
world  and  heaven,  through  her  habit  of  devout 
intercession.  Such  is  the  simplicity  of  her  faith 
in  prayer  as  a  specific  power  for  specific  effects, 
that  she  accepts  it  as  a  method,  and  perhaps  the 
chief  method,  of  her  own  usefulness.  She  trusts 
it  implicitly  :  she  uses  it  expectantly.  Does  God, 
then,  disappoint  her  in  the  result?  The  follow- 
ing is  believed  to  be  one  of  many  incidents  in  her 
experience  which  answers  the  question. 

A  few  years  ago  two  strangers  entered  the  car 
in  which  she  was  a  traveler,  and  seated  themselves 
so  near  her  that  she  could  not  avoid  overhearing 
their  conversation.  In  the  remarks  of  one  of 
them  she  soon  became  intensely  interested.  She 
inferred  from   them   that   he  was  an  impenitent 


Intercessory  Prayer.  241 

man,  and  for  some  reason  supremely  unhappy. 
This  was  sufficient  to  enlist  her  prayerful  desires 
in  his  behalf.  He  became  at  once  the  subject  of 
her  intercessory  converse  with  God.  When  she 
left  the  cars,  that  face,  so  full  of  the  suffering  of  a 
turbulent  spirit,  remained  with  her.  For  weeks 
afterward  something  moved  her  to  pray  for  that 
stranger,  that  he  might  find  peace  in  Christ.  As 
time  passed  on,  her  special  interest  in  him  gave 
place  to  more  recent  objects  of  supplication,  and 
she  thought  no  more  about  iiim.  She  had  dropped 
the  tribute  of  her  prayers  into  the  troubled  cur- 
rent of  his  life,  and  left  both  it  and  him  with  God. 

Some  years  afterward  she  visited,  hundreds  of 
miles  distant  from  her  home,  a  friend  who  invited 
her  to  go  and  hear  a  celebrated  preacher  who  had 
been  laboring  there  with  success.  She  went. 
When  the  preacher  rose  in  the  pulpit,  she  instantly 
recognized  the  face  of  the  stranger  who  had  years 
before  so  deeply  moved  her  sympathy  in  the  cars, 
—  a  face  now  no  longer  clouded  by  the  disquiet 
of  an  impenitent  spirit,  but  radiant  with  the  joy  of 
one  who  knew  the  peace  of  Christ,  and  was  striv- 
ing to  impart  it  to  other  souls. 

At  the  time  of  their  first  meeting  he  was,  in- 
deed, of  all  men  one  of  the  most  miserable, — 
crushed  by  affliction,  but  not  subdued  in  heart; 
quickened  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  yet  resolute  in 
sin ;  with  eyes  opened  to  his  lost  state,  but  blind 
to  the  gift  of  a  Saviour ;  whirled  in  the  great  crisis 
of  his  moral  destiny,  which  comes  but  once  to  any 


242  My  Portfolio. 

man,  jQt  without  God,  and  having  no  hope ;  both 
worlds  shrouded  by  the  very  blackness  of  dark- 
ness. Few  men  have  ever  needed  prayer  more 
sorely  than  he  did  in  that  juncture.  It  was  one 
of  those  emergencies  of  moral  conflict  in  which  it 
is  like  God  to  interpose  with  a  singular  rescue. 
The  appearance  of  the  stranger  now  in  a  Chris- 
tian pulpit  tells  the  issue.  His  conversion  had 
followed  within  the  year,  his  proximity  to  his 
praying  fellow-traveler  in  the  cars. 

This  narrative  illustrates  the  way  in  which  God 
often  intertwines  his  own  sovereign  providence 
with  human  sympathies  and  believing  prayers,  in 
the  network  of  instrumentalities  for  the  conver- 
sion of  a  soul.  The  death  of  a  friend  breaks  down 
the  strong  man  in  his  career  of  worldly  success. 
The  inherited  faith  of  his  youth,  representing  who 
can  say  how  many  or  how  mighty  prayers  of  a 
godly  ancestry,  is  set  on  fire  in  his  heart  by  the 
breath  of  God.  Then  follow  months  of  impeni- 
tent remorse  ;  and,  when  the  conflict  is  deepening 
into  despair,  there  glides  in  among  the  spiritual 
forces  a  gentle  stranger,  praying  in  the  morning, 
and  at  noonday,  and  at  eventide,  for  she  knows  not 
whom. 

We  can  not  say  what  precisely  was  the  office  as- 
signed to  that  stranger's  intercession  in  the  plan 
of  God.  We  coolly  pronounce  the  event  a  coin- 
cidence. Yes ;  but  is  that  all  ?  Unwritten  reli- 
gious history  is  too  full  of  such  coincidences  to 
allow  us  to  leave  it  there.     Must  we  not  believe 


Intercessory  Prayer,  243 

that  woman's  prayers  to  have  been  one  link  in  the 
chain  of  spiritual  causes  ?  Why  not  a  link  as  ne- 
cessary as  the  bereavement  to  that  soul's  salvation? 
Were  not  both  the  working-out  of  one  purpose  ? 
He  and  she,  unknown  to  each  other,  met  for  an 
hour  just  then  and  there,  and  parted.  No  word 
passed  between*  them  !  How  insignificant  the 
meeting.  A  hundred  such  occurred  that  same 
hour  on  that  same  train  of  cars.  The  rumbling 
of  the  wheels  seems  to  have  more  meaning  in  it. 
But  the  momentary  junction  of  those  two  lives 
inclosed  God's  hidden  decree.  They  may  never 
be  known  to  each  other  in  this  world.  But  who 
shall  say  that  it  was  not  that  woman's  secret  inter- 
cession which  turned  the  tide  of  conflict  for  that 
soul's  deliverance  ?  May  it  not  have  been  her  mis- 
sion to  stretch  forth  over  that  scene  of  spiritual 
contest  the  scepter  of  a  prince  who  had  power 
with  God,  and  to  beckon  invisible  forces  to  the 
rescue  ? 

Ma}^  not  thousands  of  unwritten  Christian  biog- 
raphies at  the  last  disclose  such  divine  "  coinci- 
dences "  ?  Possibly  such  results  may  reveal  the 
chief  reason  why  many  an  invalid  life  is  prolonged. 
Very  useless,  and  worse  than  tliat  to  the  sufferer's 
view,  such  a  life  often  appears.  Yet  it  may  be 
privileged  to  do  the  work  of  angels.  "  Why  art 
thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul,  and  why  art  thou 
disquieted  within  me  ?  "  What  if  the  whole  visible 
universe  be  closed  to  our  slow  feet  and  trembling 
hands,  if  the  invisible  is  open  to  wings  of  prayer  ? 


XXVII. 

HINTS  AUXILIAET  TO  PAITH  IN  PEAYER. 

The  very  magnitude  of  some  truths  breaks 
down  our  faith  in  them  as  realities.  '*  Too  good 
to  be  true"  is  the  proverbial  expression  of  our 
incredulity.  Prayer  stands  at  the  head  of  those 
powers  which  by  their  greatness  cause  faith  to 
reel  before  them.  We  need  all  the  helps  to  faith 
in  it  which  truth  will  warrant. 

1.  Among  other  things,  we  need  to  realize  the 
fact  that  prayer  is  a  spiritual  force.  It  is  not 
subject  to  the  laws  which  govern  the  material  ele- 
ments. Fire,  water,  wind,  electricity,  light,  even 
the  most  impalpable  of  material  forces,  bear  no 
comparison  with  it.  It  springs  from  the  depths  of 
the  human  spirit ;  it  deals  mainly  with  things  of 
the  spirit ;  it  reaches  to  the  Spirit  of  God.  From 
its  inception  to  its  result,  it  belongs  to  the  spirit- 
ual universe.  It  is  subject,  therefore,  to  none  of 
the  drawbacks  and  limitations  which  restrict  mate- 
rial things.  In  its  working  there  is  nothing  cor- 
responding to  friction  in  mechanic  force,  or  to  the 
vis  inertice  in  the  movement  of  the  planets.  Even 
what  we  call  the  "  laws  of  nature  "  are  subordi- 


Hints  Auxiliary  to  Faith  in  Prayer,       245 

nate  to  the  laws  of  prayer.  "  Say  unto  this  moun- 
tain, Be  thou  removed,  and  be  thou  cast  into 
the  sea,  and  it  shall  be  done."  We  loose  our- 
selves from  heavy  chains  of  unbelief,  if  we  once 
grasp  and  hold  the  full  meaning  of  the  fact  that 
prayer  is  a  spiritual  power.  Among  those  subject 
to  the  human  will,  it  stands  at  the  head  of  imma- 
terial forces. 

2.  Specially  does  it  assist  our  faith  in  the  chronic 
struggle  with  earth-bound  senses,  if  we  realize  to 
ourselves  the  fact  that  prayer  is  independent  of  the 
limitations  of  space  and  time. 

Modern  discovery  and  invention  have  given  to 
the  human  mind  new  conceptions  of  the  possibili- 
ties of  material  forces,  through  their  approach  to 
the  annihilation  of  space  and  time.  Steam,  the 
telegraph,  the  telephone,  the  telescope,  have  cre- 
ated ideas  of  power  which  once  the  world  would 
have  called  supernaturah  Men  have  probably 
been  hanged  as  witches  for  the  discovery  of  the 
germs  of  modern  science.  But  prayer  is  a  force 
which  surpasses  all  possibilities  of  science. 

In  a  tempest  at  Cape  Horn,  when  a  captain, 
with  the  aid  of  a  speaking-trumpet,  can  not  make 
his  crew  hear  his  orders  at  a  distance  of  ten  feet, 
prayer  in  a  woman's  whisper  can  be  heard  beyond 
the  stars.  Space  is  as  if  it  were  not.  Nature  takes 
countless  ages  to  construct  a  vein  of  anthracite. 
But,  while  a  praying  man  is  yet  speaking,  his 
thought  has  gone  up  to  the  mind  of  God,  has  done 
its   mysterious   mission   there,  and   has  returned 


246  My  Portfolio. 

again,  and  touched  his  lips  with  a  live  coal.  Pray- 
erful thought  annihilates  time  more  masterfully 
than  electricity.  We  gain  something  in  the  strug- 
gle of  faith  with  sense,  if  in  any  most  homely  ways 
we  can  realize  to  ourselves  the  subjection  of  time 
and  space  to  this  invisible  and  noiseless  agent  of 
the  unseen.  Oceans  have  no  place  in  its  geog- 
raphy.    Centuries  have  no  record  in  its  history. 

3.  We  find  an  auxiliary  to  faith  in  prayer,  in 
the  fact,  that,  under  God's  direction,  it  commands 
the  resources  of  angelic  agency  to  the  help  of  man. 
''  He  shall  give  his  angels  charge  over  thee." 
"  Are  they  not  all  ministering  sj)irits  ?  "  They  come 
in  response  to  prayer.  No  other  power  that  we 
know  of  reaches  the  innumerable  hosts  of  angelic 
ministers  of  God.  Science  yet  Avonders  whether 
it  can  ever  establish  intelligible  communication 
with  the  nearest  of  the  fixed  stars.  But  what  is 
that  in  comparison  with  a  power  which  enters 
heaven,  and  brings  legions  of  superhuman  forces 
to  the  aid  and  comfort  of  a  praying  woman  ?  In 
Daniel's  vision,  Gabriel  "  flies  swiftly ^^  at  the  bid- 
ding of  God,  in  answer  to  one  human  voice.  A 
hundred  and  eight3^-five  thousand  fighting  men 
were  once  slaughtered  in  a  night,  by  an  angel  of 
the  Lord,  for  the  deliverance  of  a  Hebrew  prince, 
in  answer  to  one  prayer.  Twelve  legions  of  angels 
were  once  to  be  had  for  the  asking  by  a  suffering 
man.  This  command  of  prayer  over  superhuman 
allies  is  one  of  the  commonplaces  of  its  history  in 
the  biblical  record  of  its  achievements.     Can  we 


Hints  Auxiliary  to  Faith  in  Prayer.       247 

enter  into  the  spirit  of  this  phenomenon  without  a 
deepened  sense  of  the  reality  of  our  power  with 
God? 

4.  It  helps  us  vastly  to  realize  what  prayer  is,  if 
we  admit  to  our  faith  its  supremacy  over  Satan. 
The  Bible  magnifies,  more  than  we  in  our  modern 
thouglit  do,  the  reality  of  a  great  and  fearful 
adversary  of  souls.  He  is  a  living  and  personal 
being.  He  is  the  prince  of  this  world.  Tempted 
souls  are  in  mysterious  bondage  to  him.  The  air 
is  full  of  his  spiritual  minions  and  allies.  Their 
name  is  "legion."  Under  conditions  of  conflict 
with  these  invisible  foes,  human  probation  goes  on. 

Yet  over  against  this  league  of  satanic  forces 
there  stands  at  every  man's  will  the  superior  strat- 
egy of  prayer.  This  is  the  only  human  power 
which  equals  that  of  Satan.  This  is  the  only  one 
which  Satan  fears.  This  shuts  up  the  gates  of 
hell.  The  conquest  of  Guido's  archangel  over  the 
Dragon  is  repeated,  the  world  over,  in  the  voice- 
less utterances  of  praying  men  and  women.  At 
the  bidding  of  a  praying  child  this  prince  of  the 
power  of  the  air  stands  aghast,  and  turns,  and 
flees  away. 

The  assembled  cabinet  of  a  Spanish  monarch 
once  fled  in  dismay  from  the  council-chamber, 
crossing  themselves  devoutly,  in  terror  at  a  piece 
of  clock-work  so  ingenious  and  inexplicable  in 
its  mechanism,  that  they  thought  it  must  be 
the  invention  of  the  devil.  When  the  proper- 
ties  of  phosphorus   were  first   discovered,  many 


248  3Iy  Portfolio. 

wise  men  believed  it  to  be  a  product  of  hell. 
Superstition  has  not  yet  ceased  to  tremble  at 
things  which  it  attributes  to  satanic  devices. 
But  the  real  agencies  of  Satan  are  more  fear- 
ful than  such  things  as  these  would  indicate. 
They  are  no  superannuated  fancies  and  exploded 
dreams.  They  are  among  the  revealed  realities 
of  the  spiritual  universe.  They  take  hold  on 
souls,  and  open  the  gates  of  everlasting  despair. 
And  the  only  thing  at  the  command  of  men  which 
can  always  and  everywhere  hold  successful  conflict 
with  them  is  the  power  of  prayer.  Nothing  else 
gives  to  tempted  men  and  women  the  mastery  over 
demoniac  foes.  And  this,  in  the  mouth  of  a  child, 
can  do  that.  At  the  bidding  of  a  praying  soul 
Satan  moves  very  quickly.  He  flees.  Such  is  the 
usual  story  of  his  defeat  in  the  Scriptures.  The 
wings  of  the  wind  can  not  bear  him  swiftly  enough 
from  the  presence  of  a  praying  believer.  ''  I  saw 
Satan  fall  from  heaven."  Does  it  not  uplift  our 
sense  of  the  dignity  of  prayer  as  a  power  of  con- 
quest, when  we  admit  to  our  faith  the  fact  of  its 
overwhelming  conquests  of  demoniac  battalions  ? 

5.  We  find  an  ally  to  our  faith  in  the  reality  of 
prayer  in  the  fact,  that  it  is  always  seconded  hy  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  No  believer  ever  prays  alone. 
In  the  solitude  of  African  wilds.  Dr.  Livingstone 
had  an  infinite  companion.  In  mid-ocean,  no  ship- 
wrecked sailor  ever  prays  without  a  Friend  at 
hand.  We  have  an  Advocate  with  the  Father. 
The  only-beloved  Son  of  God  gives  his  indorse- 


Hints  Auxiliary  to  Faith  in  Prayer.       249 

ment  to  the  petition  of  every  friend  who  trusts 
him.  He  to  whom  all  power  is  given  in  heaven 
and  on  earth  re-enforces  the  appeal  of  his  most 
lowly  follower.  He  by  whom  all  things  have  been 
created  adds  imperial  authority  to  the  words  of 
every  suppliant  in  his  name.  "  In  His  Name  "  was 
the  password  of  the  Waldenses,  by  which  they 
recognized  each  other  when  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  were  their  enemies.  It  is  the  password  at 
which  the  gates  of  heaven  open  to  believing  sup- 
pliants. Must  it  not  invigorate  our  trust  in  prayer, 
as  an  outcome  of  almighty  power,  if  we  can  but 
believe,  that,  when  we  pray,  Christ  prays?  Our 
thoughts  are  his  thoughts.  Our  desires  are  his 
desires.  Our  words  are  his  words.  They  go  up 
to  God  clothed  in  the  majesty  of  his  decrees.  Thus 
he  ever  lives  to  intercede :  what  can  we  ask  for 
more? 


XXV  ILL 

THE  VISION  OF  OHEIST. 

Dankeckee,  the  German  sculptor,  occupied 
eight  years  upon  a  marble  statue  of  Christ.  He 
had  previously  exercised  his  genius  upon  sub- 
jects taken  from  the  Greek  and  Roman  mythology, 
and  had  won  a  great  reputation.  The  celebrated 
statue  of  Ariadne,  in  the  garden  of  Herr  Bethman 
at  FranMort,  is  his  work.  Critics  of  art  have 
given  him  rank  with  Michael  Angelo  and  Canova. 

When  he  had  labored  two  years  upon  his  statue 
of  Christ,  the  work  was  apparently  finished.  He 
called  into  his  studio  a  little  girl,  and,  directing 
her  attention  to  the  statue,  asked  her,  "Who  is 
that?"  She  replied,  "A  great  man."  The  artist 
turned  away  disheartened.  His  artistic  eye  had 
been  deceived.  He  had  failed,  and  his  two  years 
of  labor  were  thrown  away.  But  he  began  anew ; 
and,  after  another  year  or  two  had  passed,  he 
again  invited  the  child  into  his  studio,  and  re- 
peated the  inquiry,  "Who  is  that?"  This  time 
he  was  not  disappointed.  After  looking  in  silence 
for  a  while,  her  curiosity  deepened  into  awe  and 
thankfulness ;  and,  bursting  into  tears,  she  said  in 

250 


The  Vision  of  Christ,  251 

low  and  gentle  tones,  "Suffer  little  children  to 
come  unto  me."  It  was  enough.  The  untutored 
instinct  of  the  child  had  divined  his  meaning, 
and  he  knew  that  his  work  was  a  success. 

He  believed  then,  and  ever  afterward,  that  he 
had  been  inspired  of  God  to  do  that  thing.  He 
thought  that  he  had  seen  a  vision  of  Christ  in  his 
solitary  vigils.  He  had  but  transferred  to  the  mar- 
ble the  image  which  the  Lord  had  shown  to  him. 
His  rising  fame  attracted  the  attention  of  Napo- 
leon ;  and  he  was  requested  to  make  a  statue  of 
Venus,  similar  to  the  Ariadne,  for  the  gallery  of 
the  Louvre.  He  refused,  saying,  "  A  man  who  has 
seen  Christ  would  commit  sacrilege  if  he  should 
employ  his  art  in  the  carving  of  a  Pagan  goddess. 
My  art  is  henceforth  a  consecrated  thing." 

Is  there  not  an  experience  of  communion  with 
God  in  Christ,  not  uncommon  to  mature  believers, 
which  is  equivalent  to  a  vision  of  the  Lord,  and 
which  renders  life  and  life's  work,  even  its  hum- 
blest occupations,  sacred  ?  Italian  and  Spanish  art 
contains  many  works  in  painting  and  sculpture 
on  subjects  derived  from  scriptural  biography  and 
history,  to  which  their  authors  have  given  years 
of  toil,  and  on  which  they  labored  in  a  state  of 
religious  fervor.  Some  of  them  believed  that  their 
artistic  vision  was  illumined  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  privilege  of  every  Christian  life  is  not  less 
exalted.  The  Scriptures  seem  to  assure  us  of  this. 
"  Our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father,  and  with  his 
Son  Jesus  Christ."     "  Your  life  is  hid  with  Christ 


252  My  Portfolio. 

in  God."  "He  that  dwelleth  in  love  dwelleth  in 
God,  and  God  in  liim."  Such  words,  if  they  mean 
any  thing,  mean  something  unutterably  great.  It 
is  no  prerogative  of  an  elect  few.  The  lowliest 
not  less  than  the  loftiest  life  may  have  this  ele- 
ment of  an  infinite  dignity.  A  profoundly  prayer- 
ful life  is  by  that  single  feature  of  it  lifted  into 
sympathy  with  God.  A  mean  thing  can  not  be 
made  noble  by  it,  but  a  small  thing  can  be  made 
great.  The  work  of  a  laundress  or  a  bricklayer 
may  attract  the  respect  of  angels. 

Hugh  Miller,  when  working  at  his  trade  as  a 
stone-mason,  used  to  say  that  his  was  a  grand  call- 
ing, because  the  routine  of  it  gave  to  a  first-class 
workman  so  much  time  and  mental  force  for  silent 
communion  with  God.  It  was  in  such  communion 
that  he  laid  the  foundation  of  that  dignity  of  char- 
acter which  afterward  made  him  the  companion 
of  philosophers  and  the  instructor  of  princes.  It 
matters  little  what  may  be  a  man's  employment 
in  life.  The  whole  life  is  ennobled  and  adorned 
by  it  if  it  is  done  as  in  a  vision  of  Christ.  "  In 
His  Name  "  was  the  watchword  of  the  Walden- 
ses,  and  their  form  of  salutation  when  they  met 
and  when  they  parted.  It  expressed  their  supreme 
idea  of  life,  and  of  all  that  made  it  worth  living. 
They  said  it  at  their  weddings,  and  repeated  it 
at  their  funerals.  It  was  their  formula  in  baptism 
and  at  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  it  lifted  to  the  same 
altitude  of  dignity  their  work  in  their  fields  and 
vineyards.     When  have  wise  men  ever  discovered 


The    Vision  of  Christ.  253 

a  theory  of  life  more  magnificent  and  inspiring  ? 
No  being  in  the  universe  has  a  more  exalted  occa- 
sion for  self-respect  than  one  who  lives  in  a  vision 
of  Christ.  The  apostle  could  find  no  more  hon- 
orable words  in  which  to  depict  the  life  of  Moses 
than  to  say  of  it,  "He  endured,  as  seeing  Him 
who  is  invisible." 


XXIX. 

THE  CROSS  IN  THE  DOOE. 

PfiOBABLY  it  is  not  commonly  known  that  we 
all  have  in  our  dwellings  a  relic  of  mediaeval  piety 
which  may  stir  the  Puritan  blood  in  the  veins  of 
some  of  us.  Our  ancestors,  if  their  attention  had 
been  called  to  it,  would,  perhaps,  have  exorcised  it 
from  every  Puritan  home,  with  stern  ceremony  of 
prayer  and  practical  reform,  if  not  by  the  ordeal 
of  fire. 

The  upper  half  of  the  paneling  of  doors,  till  re- 
cently universal  in  our  domestic  architecture,  rep- 
resents the  form  of  a  Roman  cross.  Remove  the 
panels,  and  the  cross  is  there  complete  and  in  exact 
proportions.  Many  have  doubtless  observed  the 
fact,  and  perhaps  with  a  momentary  chastening  of 
feeling  at  the  thought  suggested.  Some,  who  have 
more  than  the  average  degree  of  susceptibility  to 
the  impressions  of  material  symbols,  have  probably 
been  quite  willing  to  recognize  the  undesigned 
memento ;  yet  they  might  never  have  cared  to 
originate  it.  Has  it  not  sometimes  prompted  ejac- 
ulatory  praj^-er  ? 

Such  was,  in  fact,  its  original  purpose.     It  was 

254 


The  Cross  in  the  Door.  255 

no  fortuitous  circumstance,  or  geometric  conven- 
ience, in  domestic  building.  It  had  its  origin  in 
the  religious  fervor  of  the  crusades,  which  made 
every  thing  that  could  be  thus  employed  an  em- 
blem of  the  central  truths  and  forms  of  Christian 
worship.  The  same  religious  tastes  which  con- 
structed the  ancient  cathedrals  in  the  form  of  the 
cross,  and  scattered  crosses  and  the  instruments  of 
our  Lord's  passion  everywhere  by  the  roadside, 
gave  structure  to  windows  and  doors.  Windows 
in  mediaeval  castles,  and  in  the  upper  class  of  hum- 
bler homes  as  well,  were  divided  by  the  Roman 
cross,  the  pillar  running  perpendicularly  through 
the  center,  and  the  cross-beam  near  the  top  ;  so 
that  every  eye  that  looked  out  upon  the  outside 
world  should  look  through  the  type  of  the  central 
thought  of  the  Christian  faith.  Hence  arose  the 
French  word  croisee^  used  as  the  synonym  of 
fenetre^  "  a  window."  With  the  same  design,  the 
paneling  of  doors  was  so  constructed  as  to  form 
the  same  device. 

From  that  day  to  this,  this  usage  of  household 
architecture  has  remained,  —  a  silent  witness  to 
the  devotion  of  another  age.  To  mediaeval  piety 
it  must  have  been  an  impressive  circumstance  of 
daily  life,  that,  every  time  one  passed  through  a 
doorway,  one  faced  the  emblem  of  the  great  Chris- 
tian tragedy.  Entering  the  room  where  the  daily 
meals  were  served,  or  going  to  the  chamber  of 
repose  at  night,  every  inmate  of  the  home  looked 
upon  the  sign  of  the  sacrifice  on  which  the  salva- 


256  My  Portfolio, 

tion  of  all  depended  ;  and  the  same  token  was  one 
of  the  first  images  to  greet  the  eye  in  the  morning. 
The  Christian  home,  however  lowly,  if  it  rose  to 
the  dignity  of  paneled  doors  and  transom-win- 
dows, was  thus  crowded  with  reproductions  of  the 
symbol  which  the  sensitive  religious  temperament 
of  the  age  made  sacred  to  all,  and  which  often 
brought  tears  to  the  eyes  of  many.  By  such  ex- 
pedients did  our  fathers  strive  to  make  the  great 
thoughts  of  the  Christian  faith  a  pervasive  pres- 
ence with  themselves  and  their  children. 

It  is  a  singular  fact,  that  this  amiable  relic  of 
those  bygone  times  —  one  hesitates  to  call  them 
superstitious  times — escaped  entirely  the  icono- 
clasm  of  the  reformers.  While  Genevan  and 
Dutch  and  Scotch  zealots,  with  hammer  and  broad- 
axe  and  firebrand,  were  annihilating  the  cathedral 
churches,  stripping  them  of  cross  and  crucifix  and 
saintly  image,  and  were  even  exorcising  from  the 
spires,  as  an  invention  of  the  Devil,  the  most 
comely  and  pertinent  symbol  of  their  and  our 
theory  of  prayer,  and,  as  if  themselves  outwitted 
by  the  Devil,  were  substituting  in  place  of  the 
cross  those  horrible  satires  on  Protestant  Chris- 
tianity, the  weather-vane  and  the  cockerel,  in 
their  own  homes,  scattered  everywhere  before  their 
very  eyes,  was  the  abhorred  object  of  their  fury 
on  every  door  and  in  every  transom-window.  It 
still  existed  two  years  ago  in  the  door  of  John 
Knox's  study  in  Edinburgh.  The  stern  old  man 
could  not  help  seeing  it  every  time  he  raised  his 


The  Cross  iji  the  Door.  257 

eyes  from  the  book  before  him.  If  he  could  but 
have  looked  upon  it  oftener  with  suffused  eyes,  his 
preaching,  which  the  English  ambassador  said 
"put  into  him  more  life  than  his  six  hundred 
trumpets,"  might  have  derived  from  it  some  other 
tones  than  those  of  trumpets,  and  tones  which 
that  preaching  greatly  needed. 

The  crossbar  of  the  window  we  have  lost,  except 
as  the  modern  revival  of  mediaeval  architecture  has 
restored  it ;  but  the  beautiful  symbol  of  our  faith 
remains  intact  in  the  door,  almost  everywhere,  as 
in  the  olden  time.  Who  would  have  it  otherwise  ? , 
Are  we  not  all  sufficiently  open  to  religious  impres- 
sions through  the  eye,  and  far  enough  removed 
from  peril  of  superstition,  to  be  pleasantly  and 
usefully  reminded  by  this  relic  of  Him  who  said, 
"  I  am  the  Door :  by  me  if  any  man  enter  in,  he 
shall  be  saved"?  Our  fathers  of  the  middle  age 
may  not  have  been  more  holy  than  we  are ;  but 
were  they  not  more  natural  in  their  pious  love  of 
memorials  of  the  life  and  death  of  our  Lord  ?  It 
surely  can  do  us  no  harm  to  be,  to  the  extent  of 
silent  notice  of  the  cross  in  the  door,  unconscious 
ritualists. 

The  authority  for  the  assertion  as  to  the  origin 
of  the  cross  in  the  paneled  door  is  J.  Fenimore 
Cooper,  the  American  novelist,  whose  well-known 
antiquarian  tastes  are  presumed  to  be  a  sufficient 
guaranty  of  his  accuracy  in  researches  of  this 
kind. 


XXX. 

THE  PEEMATUEE  CLOSING  OP  A  LIPE'S  ¥OEK. 

"It  is  a  great  mystery.  I  have  prayed  for 
that  golden  setting  of  life's  sun  which  attends  an- 
old  man's  usefulness  when  prolonged  to  the  very 
grave.  God  denies  my  prayer.  I  am  thrust  aside 
at  the  age  of  forty-two.  I  seem  to  myself  like  a 
candle  blown  out  by  a  puff  of  wind."  Such  was 
the  lamentation,  to  a  friend,  of  one  who  was  arrest- 
ed in  his  life's  work  by  incurable  disease  in  middle 
life.  He  was  one  of  many  whose  discipline  takes 
this  mysterious  form.  Are  there  any  reasons  for 
it  which  can  light  up  the  darkness  of  the  trial  ? 

1.  We  can  see,  that,  in  the  lives  of  us  all,  phy- 
sical laws  are  at  work  which  predestine  life's  de- 
cline and  end,  and  which  can  not,  in  God's  wise 
planning  of  a  man's  destiny,  be  disregarded. 
"  Every  man's  life  is  a  plan  of  God."  But  as  such 
it  hangs  upon  other  plans  which  have  gone  before 
it.  It  includes  inherited  tendencies,  and  drifts  of 
disease  which  foredoom  the  body  to  its  dissolution 
at  its  appointed  time.  We  live  in  grand  lines  of 
inheritance.  These  run  too  far  back,  and  involve 
the  action  of  too  many  progenitors,  known  and 

258 


The  Premature  Closing  of  a  Life'' 8  Work.      259 

unknown,  for  us  now  to  trace  them  to  their  origin, 
and  see  their  ultimate  causes  and  reasons.  The 
breaking-up  of  a  man's  physical  constitution  may 
be  the  execution  of  a  decree  which  started  on  its 
fatal  way  to  the  sufferer  a  thousand  years  ago.  It 
might  be  the  extreme  of  caprice  in  God  to  arrest 
that  decree  now.  It  is  fixed  in  one  of  the  great 
grooves  of  the  universe,  and  can  not  be  dislodged, 
perhaps,  without  giving  a  shock  to  the  whole.  It 
must  run  its  course,  and  do  its  work,  as  gravita- 
tion does.  Unknown  reasons  for  it,  involving  a 
thousand  other  lines  of  destiny,  may  have  been 
accumulating  along  its  march  from  the  begin- 
ning. That  it  had  a  beginning  necessitates  just 
the  end  it  works  out,  and  no  other. 

The  premature  ending  of  a  good  man's  life,  or 
of  his  life's  work,  is,  in  this  aspect  of  it,  one  of  the 
mysteries  of  which  all  that  we  can  say  is,  "  It  is 
law;  it  is  law."  The  past  having  been  what  it 
was,  the  present  must  be  what  it  is.  Infinite  wis- 
dom can  plan  no  otherwise :  as  well  seek  to  have 
the  courses  of  the  planets  reversed  by  suspend- 
ing the  law  of  gravitation,  to  save  a  child  falling 
from  the  house-top.  And  there  we  must  leave 
it.  It  plants  itself  deep,  out  of  sight,  in  the  un- 
changeableness  of  God.  The  infinite  and  eternal 
reason  for  it  may  be  simply  that  God  is  God.  A 
life  may  be  cut  short  without  a  solitary  reason  for 
it  which  starts  with  the  sufferer  himself.  The 
reasons  may  all  lie  back  of  him,  in  the  night  of 
ages  which  none  but  the  eye  of  God  can  penetrate. 


260  My  Portfolio, 

It  is  something  to  be  able  to  see  an  inexplicable 
trial  thus  biding  itself  in  the  infinity  of  God. 

2.  It  is  noticeable  also,  that,  in  the  experience  of 
some  of  these  early  doomed  men,  their  wliole  life 
has  been  marked  by  prematurity.  The  end  is  but 
the  natural  sequence  of  the  beginning.  They  were 
precocious  children.  They  learned  the  alphabet  at 
a  sitting.  They  could  read  the  Bible  when  but 
four  years  old.  Their  memory  goes  back  to  the 
later  half  of  their  second  year.  One  such  read 
"  Edwards  on  the  Will "  at  twelve  years  of  age. 
In  college  they  led  their  seniors.  They  began 
their  public  life,  as  William  Pitt  did,  in  their 
minority.  I  have  in  mind  one  clergyman  of  this 
class  who  died  at  sixty,  and  his  friends  lamented 
his  early  end ;  but  he  preached  his  first  sermon 
while  yet  a  minor,  and  old  men  who  heard  it  were 
captivated  by  its  eloquence.  Forty  solid  years 
measured  his  ministry.  The  late  Dr.  Joseph  P. 
Thompson  was  one  of  these  early  developed  and 
early  crowned  ones. 

Now,  it  is  in  graceful  keeping  with  such  a  career, 
that  it  should  end  prematurely,  for  it  began  so. 
The  fruit  which  is  early  "  set"  ripens  early,  and 
falls  while  another  is  yet  green.  Such  men  may 
have  done  a  long  life's  work  at  the  age  of  sixty. 
Forty  years  are  a  long  service.  What  matters  it 
whether  it  ranges  from  the  age  of  twenty  to  that 
of  sixty,  or  from  that  of  thirty  to  that  of  three* 
score  and  ten  ?  The  real  rounding  of  one's  life, 
and  the  "  finishing "  of  one's  "  course  "  in  sym- 


The  Premature  Closing  of  a  Life's  Work.     261 

metrical  proportion,  like  that  in  which  St.  Paul 
exulted,  may  require  the  premature  ending  as  the 
only  becoming  sequel  to  the  premature  beginning 
and  the  precocious  growth.  Such  a  man  is  not 
wise  in  the  ways  of  God  if  he  says,  "  I  am  cut  off 
in  the  midst  of  my  days." 

3.  I  find  in  the  lives  of  some  good  men  hints  of 
some  special  reason  for  withholding  them  from  the 
execution  of  their  plans  of  usefulness,  correspond- 
ing to  that  which  forbade  to  King  David  the  build- 
ing of  the  temple.  We  may  not  know  the  reason  ; 
but  the  look  of  things  is  so  singularly  like  that  of 
the  experience  of  the  Hebrew  monarch,  that  we 
can  not  but  believe  that  there  is  one. 

The  reason  assigned  for  that  summary  disap- 
pointment of  his  hopes  does  not  necessarily  imply, 
that  in  personal  character  he  was  unfit  for  the 
work  he  aspu^ed  to :  on  the  contrary,  in  some 
respects  he  was  pre-eminently  qualified  for  it. 
Who  more  so?  Human  wisdom  would  have  chosen 
him  for  it  before  any  other  prince  in  Hebrew  an- 
nals. As  a  lyric  poet  he  had  composed  the  Psalms 
of  all  the  ages  of  the  church  of  the  future.  What 
more  fitting,  then,  than  that,  as  the  chosen  king 
of  God's  people,  and  the  founder  of  the  royal 
dynasty,  he  should  have  crowned  his  long  and 
splendid  reign  by  the  erection  of  the  temple  in 
which  that  "service  of  song"  should  begin  its 
magnificent  history?  That  was  a  grand  aspira- 
tion. It  was  an  inspiration.  It  was  worthy  of  a 
royal  mind.     But  no:    God  saw  otherwise.     For 


262  My  Portfolio, 

that  tribute  to  a  religion  of  peace  and  good  will 
to  men  he  preferred  an  eminent  civilian  to  an 
eminent  warrior.  Military  prestige  is  not  in  God's 
plans  what  it  is  in  the  plans  of  men. 

Yet  it  does  not  appear  that  King  Solomon  was  a 
better  man  than  his  royal  father.  His  wisdom 
amazed  the  Queen  of  Sheba ;  yet  the  man  whom 
God  had  called  from  the  sheepfold  to  the  throne 
was  the  "  man  after  God's  own  heart."  Perhaps 
all  the  reasons  for  preferring  Solomon  for  that  one 
service  are  not  known.  Enough  is  it,  that,  for 
reasons  which  satisfied  God,  he  was  preferred.  It 
is  something,  yes,  much,  to  see  signs  of  God's 
sovereign  election  in  such  an  unlooked-for,  and, 
as  we  should  say,  eccentric  allotment  of  the  man 
to  the  work,  and  of  the  work  to  the  man. 

Do  we  not  sometimes  see  similar  tokens  of  sov- 
ereignty in  God's  planning  of  the  lives  of  other 
good  men?  They  are  peremptorily  stopped  in 
their  career  of  usefulness.  The  work  so  dear  to 
them,  never  dearer  than  now,  is  passed  over  to  the 
hands  of  others.  When  every  thing  promises  to 
them  prolonged  success,  and  the  winding-up  of 
their  career  by  some  achievement  of  signal  value 
to  the  world,  they  come  suddenly  against  a  wall 
of  adamant.  They  are  shut  in,  can  not  take  an- 
other step  onward.  They  are  taken  from  a  career 
of  splendid  usefulness,  and  laid  on  a  bed  of  lan- 
guishing, from  which  they  never  rise  to  be  the 
men  they  were  before.  A  pastor  is  taken  from  a 
loved  and  loving  people,  to  whom,  it  should  seem 


The  Premature  Closing  of  a  Life's  Work.     263 

tliat  no  other  man  could  be  so  fit  a  leader,  and  is 
sent,  as  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bushnell  was,  to  the  other  end 
of  the  continent  in  the  sad  and  oppressive  search 
for  health.  No  wonder  that  Dr.  Bushnell  preached 
on  his  return,  upon  "  Spiritual  Dislodgements  and 
Dislocations  "  as  one  of  God's  methods  of  disci- 
pline. Such  unlooked-for  disappointments,  which 
no  human  wisdom  would  have  planned,  often  come 
violently.  They  seem  like  a  buffet  in  the  face. 
They  resemble  the  dislocation  of  one's  very  bones. 
Yet  how  numerous  are  these  sudden,  and,  as  we 
should  say,  unwise,  transfers  of  a  life's  work  and 
its  rewards  to  the  hands  of  men  other  than  those 
who  have  planned  them,  and  who  seem  to  have 
earned  the  right  to  them !  With  one  consent 
they  all  say,  "  We  never  were  so  well  prepared  for 
our  work  as  now."  These  forbidden  builders  are 
a  great  multitude.  Others  rear  with  songs  the 
superstructure  of  which  they  have  laid  the  foun- 
dation with  tears.  Their  work  is  underground, 
out  of  sight.  Their  more  fortunate  successors  are 
the  men  whom  the  world  knows  and  honors. 
They  have  gathered  the  gold  and  the  cedar,  and 
the  ships  of  transport,  and  the  cunning  workmen ; 
but  others  have  the  glory  of  using  these  to  the 
grand  purpose,  and,  what  is  vastly  more,  the  jo}^ 
of  the  doing  of  it.  Look  around :  you  find  the 
world  full  of  these  arrested,  rebuffed,  disappoint- 
ed though  willing  —  oh,  how  willing !  —  Avorkers. 
Successful  discoverers  often  are  not  those  who 
have  laid  the  trains,  and  planned  the  connections, 


264  My  Portfolio. 

and  done  the  work  preparatory  to  the  success.  I 
read  not  long  ago  of  an  application  to  the  State 
for  charity  to  the  old  age  of  the  discoverer  of  gold 
in  California.  The  most  successful  preachers  are 
large  debtors  to  their  predecessors.  An  evangelist 
whom  worshiping  converts  throng  is  always  a 
reaper  of  the  fruit  of  the  toil  of  one  or  more  hard- 
worked,  overworked,  and,  it  may  be,  discouraged, 
pastors.  The  one  is  famous  from  ocean  to  ocean : 
the  others  —  who  are  they?  The  world  knows 
not,  and  does  not  care  to  know. 

This  transmission  of  work  and  its  reward  is  one 
of  the  mysteries  which  human  wisdom  can  not 
pursue  to  its  ultimate  reasons.  But  it  is  some- 
thing to  see  that  one  is  not  solitary  in  the  disci- 
pline. There  is  enough  of  the  child  left  in  us  all 
to  make  us  glad  that  we  are  not  alone  in  the  dark. 
It  is  more  to  see,  that,  in  such  a  trial,  one  belongs 
to  a  goodly  company.  One  joins  hands  with  great 
and  good  men  of  whom  the  world  is  not  worthy. 
Kings,  prophets,  psalmists,  apostles,  martyrs,  all 
the  illustrious  classes  of  workers  in  God's  esti- 
mate of  the  universe,  have  among  them  men  who 
say,  and  perhaps  not  altogether  sadly,  "  I  have  laid 
the  foundation,  and  others  have  built  thereon." 
Above  all,  it  is  superlatively  cheering  to  be  able 
to  follow  such  a  mystery  till  it  loses  itself  in  the 
fathomless  depths  of  God's  thought.  If  a  thing 
is  so  strange  that  nothing  short  of  infinite  wisdom 
can  explain  it,  there  is  joy  in  being  the  divinely 
chosen  subject  of  it. 


The  Prematwre  Closing  of  a  Life's  Work.     265 

4.  We  find  more  tangible,  if  more  limited,  rea- 
son for  the  discipline  in  question,  in  that  divine 
expediency  which  displaces  old  men  for  the  sake 
of  calling  young  men  to  the  front.  Say  what  we 
may  of  the  usefulness  of  age,  the  value  of  ripest 
experience,  and  the  reverence  due  to  aged  good 
men,  this  world's  progress,  after  all,  hangs  upon 
the  vigor,  the  hopefulness,  the  confidence,  and  the 
daring  of  young  minds.  Age  is  naturally  con- 
servative. Conservative  tastes  grow  rank  with 
dechning  years.  They  easily  become  overgrown. 
When  a  man  in  public  station  begins  to  talk  much 
of  the  past,  and  to  delight  his  soul  with  the 
"  pleasures  of  memory,"  it  is  time  for  him  to  look 
out  for  the  place  he  fills.  When  a  preacher  begins 
to  draw  his  illustrations  of  truth  heavily  from  the 
experience  of  his  boyhood  and  the  moral  govern- 
ment he  found  in  his  father's  house,  he  may  be 
sure  that  a  j^ounger  man  than  he  is  treading  hard 
on  his  heels  to  displace  him.  Men  of  gray  hairs 
must  make  up  their  minds  to  this.  It  is  well  that 
it  is  so.  Men  can  not  walk  fast  enough  or  straight 
enough  for  the  world's  need,  if  they  are  walking 
backward.  The  danger  of  toppling  over  is  immi- 
nent. The  world  needs,  and  must  have,  and 
for  ever  will  have,  at  the  front,  men  who  live  in 
the  future,  —  men  whose  eyes  are  in  their  faces, 
who  look  onward,  and  press  onward,  and  do  it 
eagerly.  From  such  men  the  world  elects  its 
leaders.     It  is  always  so,  and  it  always  will  be  so. 

The  real  usefulness  of  men  seldom  extends  be- 


266  My  Portfolio, 

yond  forty  years  of  active  service.  After  that 
period,  the  tide  of  life  ebbs:  vitality  runs  low. 
Then  a  man  begins  to  be  called  "  venerable." 
The  world  reveres  him  for  what  he  has  been  and 
done :  it  does  not  hang  upon  him  as  a  necessity  to 
its  future.  The  aged  good  men  are,  with  few 
exceptions,  emeritus.  In  public  office,  or  out  of  it, 
it  makes  little  difference.  Not  a  little  evil  often 
offsets,  in  part,  the  good  they  do.  How  opinionated 
we  become  as  years  multiply !  How  wise  we  are 
above  younger  men  !  How  loftily  we  look  down 
on  the  rising  generation !  How  sublimely  we 
patronize  our  juniors  !  Or,  worse  than  that,  how 
set  we  are  against  improvements  which  they  origi- 
nate !  and  therefore  how  hard  it  often  is  for  them  to 
get  along  with  us !  They  are  tempted  sometimes 
to  ask  whether  our  places  are  not  worth  more  than 
we  are.  Is  this  humiliating  to  us  ?  Yes  ;  but  we 
had  better  see  it  as  it  is.  The  drift  of  old  age  is 
in  this  direction.  We  had  better  know  tliis  lonor 
before  we  come  to  the  trial ;  for  then  the  chance 
is  that  we  shall  refuse  to  know  it.  "  To  this  com- 
plexion we  must  come  at  last."  It  is  easy  to  re- 
solve against  it  in  early  manhood,  as  President 
Edwards  did,  and  as,  perhaps,  all  thoughtful  men 
do  ;  but  how  few  adhere  to  the  resolution  when 
the  strong  current  of  life  runs  backward  !  It  runs 
with  reduplicated  swiftness  as  the  decline  of  life 
approaches  the  last  valley. 

This  and  other  almost  inevitable  infirmities  of 
age  may  be  the  reason  why  God  sets  aside  old 


The  Premature  Closing  of  a  Life's  Work.     267 

men,  and  some  men  before  they  are  old,  and  says 
to  the  younger  men,  "  Come  up  hither."     He  often 
seems  to  do  it  ruthlessly.     The  world  is  in  too  bad 
a  plight  to  afford  to  wait  always  for  the  slow  ad- 
justment of  men's  minds  to    such  displacements. 
Sharp  turns,  quick  revolutions,  sudden  emergen- 
cies, occur  in  the  divine  plan,  which  require  the 
quick  summoning  of  new  men  to  the  leadership 
of  God's  hosts.     This  implies  no  sin,  no  unworthi- 
ness,  but   only   infirmity,  in  the    senior  workers. 
The  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  many  able  com- 
manders.    One  after  another  was  "relieved,"  with 
complimentary  acknowledgment  of  his   soldierly 
abilities.     It  was  no  reflection  upon  them  that  the 
one  man  who  alone  could  make  his  way  to  Appo- 
mattox stood  behind  them,  abiding  his  time.     It 
was  no  disgrace  to  the  old  chieftain  who  "  never 
lost   a  battle,"  when  Gen.  Scott  retired  to   give 
place  to  a  younger,  not  a  better,  soldier.     Was  it 
not  time  for  him  to  give  way  when  he  fell  asleep 
in  his  chair  at  a  council  of  war,  while  the  enemy 
was  creeping  upon  the  capital  ?     Yet  the  President 
and  the  Vice-President,  and  honorable  senators  of 
the  Republic,  and  Supreme  Court  judges  walked 
in  humble  procession  to  his  headquarters  to  bear 
witness  to  the  old  man's  glory;   and  the  nation 
said,  as  with  one  voice,  "  He  deserves  it." 

Yes,  it  is  a  wise  arrangement  that  the  genera- 
tions of  mind  on  this  earth  do  not  live  long 
abreast  with  each  other.  The  period  of  their 
overlapping  is  brief.     God  wisely  recalls  the  elder 


268  My  Portfolio, 

to  himself,  and  gives  to  an  imperiled  world  the 
young  life,  because  it  needs  that.  Who  are  we  that 
we  should  presume  to  withstand  or  to  cavil  at  so 
benign  an  ordinance  ?  Let  us  rejoice  rather  that  we 
do  not  have  the  ordering  of  such  things.  Let  us  bid 
God-speed  to  our  successors,  and  say  "  All  hail !  " 
to  the  coming  generations.  Let  us  uplift  our  own 
eye  to  that  world  where  years  are  not  counted.  If 
youth  here  is  so  glad  a  thing,  what  must  the  im- 
mortal youth  be  ?  What  plans  of  service,  what 
untiring  labors,  what  swift  achievements,  what 
immeasurable  successes,  are  awaiting  us  there ! 

5.  The  mystery  we  are  considering,  in  common 
with  all  other  dark  things  in  God's  administration 
of  affairs,  suggests  further,  as  one  of  its  possible 
reasons,  the  vast  and  complicated  reticulation  of 
human  with  angelic  interests  and  activities.  Much 
that  is  dark  to  us  here  may  become  luminous 
when  seen  in  the  light  of  the  interests  of  other 
worlds.  This  is  a  great  universe  which  God  has 
to  care  for.  We  are  compassed  about  with  a  great 
cloud  of  witnesses.  There  is  enough  in  the  life  of 
one  redeemed  sinner  to  attract  a  convoy  of  angels 
in  awe-struck  study.  May  it  not  be  for  their  sake, 
in  some  way,  that  one  man  is  taken  and  another 
left  ?  Who  can  tell  ?  But  who  can  tell  that  it  is 
not  so  ?  Any  other  than  the  order  of  things  which 
God  has  chosen  might  jar  upon  the  angelic  sense 
of  wisdom,  and  awaken  questions  which  could  not 
be  answered,  nor  yet  wisely  left  unanswered.  Of 
this  we  can  say  but  little,  because  we  know  but 


The  Premature  Closing  of  a  Life's  Work.     269 

little.  Yet  we  can  see  that  a  vast  region  of 
unknown  research  opens  in  that  direction.  The 
discipline  which  buries  us  in  oblivion  or  in  the 
grave  may  excite  adoring  song  beyond  the  stars. 
That  "  reason "  which  we  long  for  when  we  ask 
the  question  "why?"  may  be  found  in  the  planet 
Jupiter.  It  may  be  among  the  "  sweet  influences 
of  Pleiades.  "  At  any  rate,  we  must  become  wise 
enough  to  know  that  it  is  not  so,  before  we  can 
wisely  discredit  God's  dealings  with  us  by  a  sad 
countenance  or  a  grieved  spirit.  Shall  we  pre- 
sume to  contend  with  the  grand  public  opinion  of 
the  universe  respecting  the  wisdom  of  the  divine 
allotments  of  our  destiny  ? 

6.    Perhaps   a   more    satisfying   reason  for  the 
premature  withdrawal  of  good  men  from  active 
service  may  be  sometimes  found  in  the  fact  that 
some    men   need,   for  their  best    preparation   for 
the  heavenly  life,  a  period  of  eartlily  repose  before 
entering  upon  that  life.     Activity  needs  to  be  sus- 
pended for  a  while.     The  soul  needs  time  and  self- 
collection  to  look  before  and  after.     We  all  need 
a  chance  to  gather  up  broken  and  frayed  threads 
of  character,  and  to  interweave  them  deftly  into 
their  neglected  places.     Some  need  this  more  than 
others ;  but  do  not  all  feel  an  instinctive  desire  for 
it?    Have  not  many  sins  and  infirmities  of  temper- 
ament been  crowded  out  of  view  by  the  cares  of 
service  ?    In  my  boyhood,  it  astounded  me  to  hear 
one  of  the  most  illustrious  of  American  preachers 
say  to  his  people  that  he  had  been  compelled  to 


270  My  Portfolio, 

neglect  the  spiritual  nutrition  of  his  own  soul  in 
the  intellectual  struggle  to  provide  food  for  theirs. 
I  understand  it  now. 

Why  is  it  that  some  good  men  must  go  down 
life's  last  decade  with  the  tottering  limbs  of  a 
second  infancy  ?  Sad,  unspeakably  sad,  is  that  com- 
ment which  we  sometimes  have  to  make  upon 
one  whom  the  world  has  honored  with  its  trust  in 
high  places :  "  He  has  been  a  learned  man,  a  wise 
man,  a  great  man ;  but  now "  —  So  strange  a 
humiliation  of  a  great  mind  and  an  heir  of  God 
must  have  something  to  do  with  its  preparation 
for  an  immortal  youth.  "  Except  ye  become  as 
little  children."  Some  may  not  be  able  to  become 
that,  except  through  the  vale  of  second  childhood. 
That  earthly  silence  may  be  the  great  opportunity 
preparative  to  fitness  for  a  service  in  the  coming 
life,  compared  with  which  the  grandest  service  of 
this  life  is  but  infantile.  The  sleep  of  the  chrysa- 
lis is  the  forerunner  of  golden  glory.  If  one  can 
but  believe  that  God's  plan  is  made  up  of  such 
inspiring  mysteries  !  Yet  why  not  ?  "  Eye  hath 
not  seen,  nor  ear  heard."  Sin  and  its  conse- 
quences have  no  concern  with  that.  They  are 
buried  beneath  the  glory  that  is  to  be  revealed. 
Why  should  we  not  believe  that  God's  reasons  for 
things  are  like  him  ?  "  It  must  be  his  doing,"  as 
Charles  Kingsley  said,  "because  it  is  so  strange 
and  so  painful."  None  but  an  infinite  mind  could 
plan  some  things  as  they  are  in  the  lives  of  us 
all,  and  yet  make  them  come  out  right  in  the  end. 


XXXI. 

WHAT  DO  WE  KNOW  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  LIFE? 

There  are  thousands  of  Christian  men  and 
women  whose  life  lies  along  the  border-line  be- 
tween two  worlds.  By  the  decline  of  old  age, 
or  by  prolonged  and  incurable  disease,  they  are 
brought  very  near  to  eternity,  and  kept  there. 
They  are  irresistibly  impelled  to  look  over  the 
line  inquiringly.  "  Does  heaven  begin  at  once  ?  " 
was  the  query  of  a  Christian  captain  in  the  late 
war,  as  he  lay  on  the  field,  with  life  oozing  slowly 
away.  "  I  shall  soon  know  all  about  it,"  he 
added,  and  then  fell  asleep. 

Such  inquiries  by  those  whom  God  brings  thus 
up  close  to  the  river's  brink,  and  holds  there  for 
months  or  years,  are  not  unreasonable.  Faith  is 
not  in  fault,  if  we  try  to  answer  them.  Some 
things  about  the  redeemed  life  we  do  know.  Not 
with  the  knowledge  of  demonstration :  very  little 
of  our  knowledge  of  any  thing  is  that.  But  by 
either  the  testimony  of  revelation,  or  by  the  proof 
of  strong  natural  probability,  such  as,  for  the 
most  part,  we  have  to  act  upon  in  the  practical 
affairs  of  this  life,  we  can  say,  of  some  things  in 
the  future  life  of  the  redeemed,  "  we  knoicT 


272  3Iy  Portfolio, 

1.  That  life  will  be  emancipation  from  a  dying^ 
and,  in  its  best  state,  a  restrictive  body.  This  is 
certain.  Whatever  else  takes  place  at  death,  we 
shall  surely  leave  this  covered  skeleton.  We  shall 
no  longer  look  out  upon  God's  universe  through 
dying  eyes,  nor  get  the  major  part  of  our  knowl- 
edge of  it  through  the  discipline  of  pain.  One  of 
Quarles's  "  Emblems  of  Life  "  is  a  child  peering 
sadly  out  between  the  ribs  of  a  skeleton  bare  and 
dead.  That  emblem  we  shall  smile  at  as  belong- 
ing to  a  past  world.  To  thousands  of  sufferers 
this  will  be  a  glad  escape.  Think  what  it  must 
be  to  the  blind,  the  deaf,  the  crippled, — to  Laura 
Bridgman  !  "  Let  me  pass  out "  were  the  signifi- 
cant dying  words  of  one  believer,  which  I  find 
upon  her  tombstone. 

The  restrictions  of  sense  will  cease.  We  shall 
exchange  pain  for  ease,  weariness  for  strength, 
confinement  for  freedom.  To  those  who  have 
long  since  forgotten  what  the  sensations  of  health 
are,  this  is  a  glad  assurance.  Said  one  of  the 
saints,  who  for  years  had  not  known  a  painless 
hour,  when  asked  what  was  his  most  vivid  con- 
ception of  heaven,  "  Freedom  from  palpitation  of 
the  heart."  His  whole  being  had  been  so  long 
absorbed  in  conflict  with  that  form  of  suffering, 
that  to  be  rid  of  it  was  often  all  the  heaven  he 
had  strength  to  think  of.  Who  of  us,  if  at  peace 
with  God,  does  not  sometimes  exult  in  this 
thought :  "  One  thing  I  know :  whatever  else  is 
before  me,  I  am  going  out  of  this  worn-out  body, 
to  be  shut  up  in  it  no  more  for  ever  "  ? 


What  do  we  hioiv  of  the  Heavenly  Life  ?      273 

2.  As  a  consequence  of  freedom  from  the  body, 
we  may  reasonably  be  assured  of  an  enlarged 
range  and  an  augumented  intensity  of  mental  powers, 
A  deeper  insiglit  into  truth,  riddance  from  pain- 
ful doubts,  the  settlement  of  life-long  inquiries, 
more  profound  sensibilities  to  truth,  a  more  per- 
fectly balanced  being  through  and  through,  and 
crowned  by  a  more  imperial  will,  —  these  things, 
it  should  seem,  must,  in  the  experience  of  the 
redeemed,  be  the  fruit  of  simply  going  out  of  this 
prison-house  in  which  we  see  darkly.  "More 
light  I "  was  the  dying  exclamation  of  an  illus- 
trious philosopher.  With  profound  joy  and  a 
deeper  meaning  may  a  dying  believer  feel  assured 
of  its  coming.  I  have  inquired  of  a  distinguished 
expert  in  natural  science  whether  his  studies  had 
given  him  any  new  hints,  from  the  analogy  of 
Nature,  respecting  the  intermediate  state  of  souls. 
"Only  this,"  he  replies,  "that  Nature,  by  her 
organic  changes  in  vegetable  and  animal  being, 
hints  at  improvement,  not  decline.  As  a  rule, 
organic  change  is  for  the  better.  Nature  does  not 
deteriorate,  and  is  not  stationary  in  quality,  in 
her  great  transitions.  Why  should  not  the  same 
law  of  improvement  govern  the  transition  of  the 
soul  to  the  coming  life  ? 

I  conceive  that  the  exhilaration  of  perfect 
health,  which  some  feel  on  the  mountains  or  at 
the  seashore,  is  probably  some  faint  emblem  of  the 
permanent  state  of  the  soul  when  either  disem- 
bodied, or  clothed  in  spiritual  form.     Youth,  in 


274  My  Portfolio. 

its  most  irrepressible  and  bounding  overflow  of 
energies,  is  a  more  truthful  emblem  still.  "  The 
immortals,"  said  the  old  Greeks,  "are  always 
young."  With  a  surer  faith  may  we  believe  this 
of  the  condition  of  a  redeemed  spirit  in  the  life 
to  come.  We  have  no  reason  to  mourn  over  de- 
parted youth.  That  form  of  the  world's  elegiac 
poetry  is  destined  to  become  obsolete.  Our  real 
youth  is  beyond  the  stars. 

3.  The  evidence  is  not  small,  that,  in  a  life  free 
from  the  limitations  of  sense,  the  souVs  natural 
dominion  over  material  things  will  be  grandly  devel- 
oped. Mind  will  probably  be  independent  of  the 
veto  of  matter.  Our  Lord  seems  to  have  possessed 
the  power  of  passing  through  material  obstruc- 
tions without  a  rent  or  a  break.  Through  closed 
doors  and  dense  walls  he  passed  with  the  ease  of 
thought.  Through  angry  crowds,  whose  every 
eye  was  fixed  upon  him,  he  slipped  away  invisibly. 
Was  this  miracle  ?  Even  so,  it  may  have  been  only 
an  anticipation  of  the  natural  sovereignty  of  soul 
over  matter.  Angelic  intelligences  seem  to  have 
the  same  supremacy  over  material  forms,  assuming 
them  and  dropping  them  at  will.  All  the  biblical 
hints  of  the  life  natural  to  spiritual  being  look  to 
this  as  one  of  its  conditions.  They  suggest  the 
query,  whether  mind,  after  all,  is  not  the  only  sub- 
stance, and  matter  the  shadow.  This  is  at  least  less 
improbable  than  the  glum  faith  of  materialism. 

Trifling  as  this  is  as  a  matter  of  speculation 
only,  it  is  fraught  Avith  magnificent  probabilities 


What  do  toe  hioiv  of  the  Heavenly  Life  ?      275 

in  respect  to  the  range  of  activity,  and  the  useful- 
ness and  the  joy  of  redeemed  spirits.  The  pre- 
rogatives of  spiritual  being  seem  to  be  those  of 
royalty  over  the  material  universe.  Movement 
with  the  spring  and  the  speed  of  thought  is  among 
its  possibilities.  The  most  distant  of  the  fixed 
stars  may  not  be  beyond  the  limit  of  its  travels. 
Man's  dominion  over  this  earth  in  toil  and  sweat 
and  blood  is  but  a  faint  symbol  of  his  easy  and 
luxurious  empire  beyond  its  confines. 

4.  The  probability  amounts  well-nigh  to  cer- 
tainty, that  the  immortal  life  involves  an  intensified 
consciousness  of  personal  identity.  And  if  of  our 
own  identity,  then  of  that  of  departed  friends  as 
well.  The  experience  of  drowning  men  in  the 
quickening  of  memory  is  to  the  point  here.  The 
very  objects  of  probationary  discipline  should 
seem  to  require  this  deepening  of  the  sense  of 
individuality  at  the  end.  The  doctrine  of  a  day 
of  judicial  reckoning,  and  of  the  revelation  of 
things  hidden,  looks  to  the  same  augmentation  in 
the  soul's  consciousness  of  being.  Every  biblical 
hint  of  individuals  living  in  the  spiritual  state  is 
of  their  exalted,  not  degraded,  existence.  God 
is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living.  So 
far  from  truth  is  the  foreboding  of  unconscious 
sleep,  or  of  ages  of  dream-life,  or  of  absorption  in 
universal  Being,  that  the  scriptural  glimpses  of 
that  life  hint  at  just  the  opposite,  —  an  intensified 
individuality.  Revelation  knows  something  of 
Abraham,  of  Isaac,  of  Jacob,  of  Elijah,  of  Moses, 


276  My  Portfolio. 

but  not  a  whisper  of  "the  Oversoul,"  "the  Soul 
of  the  Universe,"  "  the  Spirit  of  the  Whole,"  and 
"the  Ocean  of  Being," — whatever  these  may 
mean.  These  did  not  put  in  an  appearance  on  the 
Mount  of  Transfiguration.  Dives  and  Lazarus 
made  no  such  discoveries.  We  shall,  in  that  life, 
be  more  distinctly  conscious  of  what  we  are,  not 
less  so.  Memory  will  be  more  truthfully  historic. 
Conscience  will  be  more  intensely  self-revealing. 
Friends  must  be  outlined  to  our  vision  more 
vividly,  and  therefore  more  lovingly.  Stereo- 
scopic sight  is  but  a  faint  emblem  of  the  vision 
which  souls  will  there  have  of  each  other  and  of 
themselves. 

Never  was  a  more  causeless  doubt  suggested 
to  plague  afflicted  ones  than  that  concerning  the 
non-re  CO  2["nition  of  friends  in  heaven.  Few  are 
pestered  with  it  who  drink  deep  of  the  spirit  of 
the  Bible.  If  the  question  had  been  asked  of  our 
Lord  by  the  loved  disciple,  —  no,  he  would  never 
have  asked  it ;  by  Thomas,  rather,  —  I  fancy  that 
the  Master  would  have  answered,  "  If  it  were  not 
so,  I  would  have  told  you."  It  is  one  of  those 
truths  of  which  the  spirit  of  his  silence  is,  "  That 
is  a  thing  of  course  :  waste  no  thought  upon  a 
doubt  of  it.  It  belongs  to  the  alphabet  of  the 
immortal  life.  So  sure  is  it,  so  deep  laid  in  the 
nature  of  souls,  that  I  have  not  thought  it  needful 
to  affirm  it.  You  will  one  day  smile  at  the  igno- 
rance which  could  question  it." 

5.  As  the  fruit  of  such  changed  conditions  of 


What  do  we  know  of  the  Heavenly  Life  ?      211 

being,  we  must  look  for  a  new  sense  of  the  person- 
ility^  the  perfections^  and  the  friendship^  of  God, 
through  new  affinities  with  his  character.  This 
must  follow  the  change  from  faith  to  sight.  It  is 
the  legitimate  sequence  of  growth  from  partial  to 
perfect  sinlessness.  The  pure  in  heart  shall  see 
God.  "The  glory  of  God"  is  no  glittering  gen- 
erality. "I  saw  no  temple  there."  We  shall  need 
none.  The  struggling  conceptions  we  form  of 
God  here  will  give  place  to  a  resplendent  and 
beatific  vision.  "  I  knew  a  man  .  .  .  caught  up 
into  paradise,  and  heard  unspeakable  words,  which 
it  is  not  lawful  for  a  man  to  utter."  "  We  shall 
see  as  we  are  seen." 

Our  possible  joy  in  God  seems  often  very  meager 
here ;  there  it  must  be  augmented  in  proportion 
to  our  moral  sympathy  with  God.  Physical  and 
intellectual  hinderances  to  it  will  be  done  away. 
Liberty  from  the  intermeddling  of  Satan  will  in- 
tensify it.  We  shall  delight  in  God  in  proportion 
to  our  love  of  his  being  and  the  response  of  sym- 
pathy to  his  character.  God  in  Christ  is  a  new 
disclosure  of  God  in  the  history  of  the  universe. 
Just  how  the  divine  indwelling  in  human  form 
achieves  its  end,  we  may  not  know ;  but  that  it 
will  act  as  a  magnifying  lens  to  the  soul's  eye 
can  not  be  doubtful.  It  will  realize  to  our  con- 
sciousness the  fact  of  sinlessness.  It  will,  there- 
fore, calm  our  perturbations.  The  turbid  sea  of  a 
memory  lashed  by  guilt  will  be  at  peace.  It  will 
soften  dread  into  love.     It  will  give  courage   to 


278  My  Portfolio. 

awe-struck  reverence.  It  will  still  an  affrighted 
conscience.  All  the  retributive  elements  of  the 
soul  will  return  to  their  original  province,  —  that 
of  making  sympathy  with  God  possible,  in  waves 
and  billows  of  ecstatic  emotion,  of  which  we  have 
now  no  conception.  Probably  in  no  other  way 
than  by  this  humanized  discovery  of  God  in  Christ 
could  souls  with  a  history  of  sin  behind  see  God, 
and  live. 

6.  The  occupations  of  that  life.  What  are  they? 
If,  in  respect  to  the  marriage  relation,  we  shall  be 
"  as  the  angels,"  why  not  like  them  in  their  busy 
and  tireless  activities  of  benevolence  ?  Are  they 
not  all  ministering  spirits  ?  What  else  can  ex- 
panded faculties,  and  deepened  sensibilities,  and 
immortal  youth,  and  conscious  sinlessness,  find  to 
do  in  a  universe  swayed  by  the  mighty  pulsations 
of  the  love  of  God  ?  Sabbatic  worship  as  pictured 
in  St.  John's  Apocalypse  must  surely  be  symbolic. 
The  heavenly  choir  must  be  an  emblem,  rather 
than  a  literal  picture.  Life  in  heaven  can  be  no 
statuesque  existence.  Emblem  of  what?  Of  the 
gladness,  of  the  spontaneity,  of  the  purity,  and  of 
the  dignity,  of  untiring  and  diversified  service. 
We  shall  mount  up  on  wings,  as  eagles.  '  In 
proportion  to  our  capacities  of  service,  and  our 
sympathy  with  the  great  heart-throb  of  a  loving 
universe,  we  shall  be  employed  as  ministers  of 
God.  Some  of  us  will  be  swift  messengers.  Kings 
and  priests  we  shall  be.  We  shall  reign  with 
Christ.     What  this  means  we  know  not,  except 


What  do  tve  knoiv  of  the  Heavenly  Life  f      279 

tliat  it  must  mean  exalted  and  pure  and  benevo- 
lent service  in  more  than  apostolic  missions. 

Such  are  a  few  only  of  the  facts  of  the  life  to 
come,  of  which  we  have  the  same  kind  and  degree 
of  evidence  that  we  have  of  many  things  in  this 
life  on  which  we  act  with  practical  assurance. 
Do  such  hints  make  heaven  seem  inviting  to  us  ? 
Is  it  home-like  ?  Does  it  seem  "  better  to  depart"  ? 
The  answer  may  in  some  cases  be  a  fair  test  of 
readiness  to  depart. 

Many  of  us  can  not  reasonably  anticipate  any 
new  disclosures  of  heaven  when  death  is  at  hand. 
Those  who  expect  visions  in  the  closing  hour  will 
probably  be  disappointed.  The  great  majority  of 
djdng  believers,  and  some  of  the  best  of  them,  have 
none.  It  is  not  natural  to  their  mental  make. 
They  die  with  an  apparent  stolidity  which  gives 
to  some  physicians  food  for  skepticism  as  to  the 
soul's  immortality.  The  mental  constitution  of 
most  men  predisposes  them  to  faith^  not  to  the 
electric  imagination  which  forestalls  the  discover- 
ies of  spiritual  sight.  The  major  number  of  us  are 
naturally  believers,  not  poets.  Many  of  us  never 
sing.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Candlish  of  Edinburgh  said 
on  his  death-bed,  "  I  have  no  overpowering  emo- 
tions, but  I  have  a  great  faith."  Such  an  experi- 
ence only,  have  most  of  us  any  reason  to  look  for 
when  our  time  comes. 

I  have  in  mind  a  dying  woman,  whose  life  had 
seemed  to  observers  to  be  a  foregleam  of  the  purity 
of  heaven.      She  had  also  a  poetic  temperament. 


280  My  Portfolio. 

In  prayer  she  often  seemed  inspired.  Yet  she 
died  silently.  She  succumbed  to  disease  as  an  in- 
fant does,  as  speechlessly  and  as  trustfully.  Most 
of  us  must  be  content  with  this.  We  shall  not, 
probably,  hear  harps  of  angels,  nor  see  shining 
forms  flitting  across  streets  of  gold  and  over  walls 
of  sapphire.  We  are  not  likely  to  find  on  this  side 
of  the  river  loved  hands  stretched  out  in  welcome. 
God  will  not,  probably,  work  a  miracle  to  improve 
upon  the  constitutional  make  which  he  gave  us 
at  our  creation.  Nor  do  we  know  that  spiritual 
sight  before  the  time  could  be  an  improvement. 
We  have  only  to  accept  with  contented  faith  the 
knowledge  which  reason  and  revelation  give  us 
of  the  unseen  life,  and  ask  ourselves,  "  Is  it  home- 
like to  us  ?  Does  our  present  character  fit  in  well 
with  its  lofty  and  pure  attractions  ?  "  What  we 
are  in  our  gracious  sympathies  and  affinities  is 
more  vital  than  what  we  know  of  things  invisible. 


The  Theory  of  Preaching, 


OR 


LECTURES     ON     HOMILETICS. 

By    Professor    AUSTIN    PHELPS,    D.D. 


One  volume,  8vo,         -----         $2.50 

This  work,  now  offered  to  the  i/uMic,  is  the  growth  of 
inore  than  thirty  years'  practical  experience  in  teaching. 
W^hile  primarily  designed  for  professional  readers,  it  will  be 
found  to  contain  much  that  will  be  of  interest  to  thoughtful 
laymen.  The  writings  of  a  master  of  style  of  broad  and 
catholic  mind  are  always  fascinating;  in  the  present  case  the 
wealth  of  appropriate  and  pointed  illustration  renders  this 
doubly  the  case« 

CRITIC  A  li    NOTICES. 

•'  In  the  range  of  Protestant  homiletical  literature,  we  venture  to  affirm  that  its  equal 
cannot  be  found  for  a  conscientious,  scholarly,  and  exhaustive  treatment  of  the  theory 
and  practice  of  preaching.  *  *  *  To  the  treatment  of  his  subject  Dr.  Phelps  brings 
such  qualifications  as  very  few  men  now  living  possess.  His  is  one  of  those  delicate  and 
sensitive  natures  which  are  instinctively  critical,  and  yet  full  of  what  Matthew  Arnold 
happily  calls  sweet  reasonableness.  *  *  *  To  this  characteristic  graciousness  of 
nature  Dr.  Phelps  adds  a  style  which  is  preeminently  adapted  to  his  special  work.  It  is 
nervous,  epigrammatic,  and  racy." — The  Exatnitier  and  Chronicle. 

"  It  is  a  wise,  spirited,  practical  and  devout  treatise  upon  a  topic  of  the  utmost  con- 
sequence to  pastors  and  people  alike,  and  to  the  salvation  of  mankind.  It  is  elaborate 
but  not  redundant,  rich  in  the  fruits  of  experience,  yet  thoroughly  timely  and  current, 
and  it  easily  takes  the  very  first  rank  among  volumes  of  its  class. —  'Ihe  Congrega- 
tionalist. 

"The  layman  will  find  it  delightful  reading,  and  ministers  of  all  denominations  and 
of  all  degrees  of  experience  will  rejoice  in  it  as  a  veritable  mine  of  wisdom." — New  York 
Christian  Adziocate. 

"The  volume  is  to  be  commended  to  young  men  as  a  superb  example  of  the  art  in 
which  it  aims  to  instruct  them." — The  Independent. 

"The  reading  of  it  is  a  mental  tonic.  The  preacher  cannot  but  feel  often  his  heart 
burning  withm  him  under  its  influence.  We  could  wish  it  might  be  in  the  hands  of  every 
theological  student  and  of  every  pastor." — The  IVatchman. 

"Thirty-one  years  of  experience  as  a  professor  of  homiletics  in  a  leading  American 
Theological  Seminary  by  a  man  of  genius,  learning  and  power,  are  condensed  into  this 
valuable  volume."— CAr/j//a«  Intelligencer. 

"  Our  professional  readers  will  make  a  great  mistake  if  they  suppose  this  volume  is 
simply  a  heavy,  monotonous  discussion,  chiefly  adapted  to  the  class-room.  It  is  a 
delightful  volume  for  general  reading.'' — Boston  Zion's  Herald. 


*4(.*  For  sale    by  all    booksellers.,    or  sent.,  post-paid.,    upon     receipt  of 
price.,  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  Publishers, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York, 


NaHtral  Science  and  Religion. 

By    Prof.    ASA    GRAY,    LL.D. 


One     "Volume,     Crown    8vo.,        ....        $1.00. 

These  striking  and  earnest  lectures,  delivered  by  one  of  the  leading 
men  of  science  of  the  country  before  one  of  its  chief  schools  of  theology,  are 
contributions  of  a  most  noteworthy  sort  to  the  literature  of  their  subject. 
The  position  of  their  author  is  a  guarantee  that  they  are  not  devoted  to 
any  perfunctory  attempt  to  reconcile  opposing  doctrines.  They  are  a 
remarkably  strong  and  independent  presentation  of  what  a  distinguished 
scientific  man,  an  acceptor  of  the  theory  of  evolution  and  one  of  the  most 
famous  of  its  students,  has  to  say  upon  those  recent  discoveries — par- 
ticularly in  biology — which  seem  to  affect  religious  belief.  Both  from  its 
point  of  view  and  from  its  matter,  the  book  fills  an  entirely  new  place  in 
a  most  vitally  important  discussion. 


CRITICAL     NOTICIS. 


"  There  is  more  religion,  more  science,  and  more  common  sense  in 
these  discourses  than  may  be  found  in  any  other  recent  discussion  of  this 
difficult  subject." — Chicago   Times. 

"  The  spirit  of  the  lectures  is  thoroughly  scientific,  and  also  Cliristian; 
and  we  heartily  wish  that  every  skeptical  scientist  would  carefully  read 
and  inwardly  digest  them." — JVezu  York  World. 

"No  one  can  rise  from  the  perusal  of  these  lectures  without  feeling 
that  he  has  gained  a  firmer  footing  than  he  had  before.  The  style  is  deli- 
ciously  clear  and  attractive,  the  kind  which  charms  while  it  convinces." — 
San  Francisco  Eve.  Bulletin. 

"The  lectures  are  very  pleasantly  written  in  a  simple  and  attractive 
style,  though  with  careftil  accuracy  of  thought  and  statement,  and  it  will  be 
to  the  advantage,  both  of  religion  and  of  science,  that  they  be  widely  read." 
— Philadelphia    Times. 

"  The  best  brief  exposition  we  have  seen  of  the  relation  between  scientific 
and  religious  thought.  We  heartily  commend  it  to  all  who  wish  to  be  stirred 
up  to  an  intelligent  consideration  of  this  most  important  subject." — TV.  V. 
Jndepetident. 

"  Such  an  exposition  as  this  of  the  real  attitude  and  teaching  of  modern 
science,  so  clear  an  explanation  of  the  actual  belief  of  scientific  investi- 
gators, and  so  fine  a  discrimination  between  the  necessary  inferences  to  be 
drawn  from  the  accepted  doctrines  of  modern  science  and  the  inferences 
actually  drawn  by  particular  philosophers,  cannot  fail  to  be  an  uncommonly 
acceptable  work.  Aside  from  all  this  the  little  book  will  serve  an  excellent 
purpose  as  the  best  and  clearest  explanation  of  what  modern  science  is 
in  its  essence,  and  of  what  its  conclusions  are,  that  is  anywhere  to  be  found 
in  brief  compass  by  unscientific  readers." — Evening  Post. 


*^.*  For    sale   by    all    bookseUers,  or    sent,   post-paid,  upon   receipt    of 
frice,  by 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S    SONS,  Publishers, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


THE    POETICAL    WORKS 

OF 

RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD. 

With  a  Portrait  from  a  phot  ^ graph  by   Saro?iy. 
Engraved  by   Kruell. 

1  vol.,  8vo.,  pp.  512.    Kichly  printed  and  bound,  full  gilt,   -  $4.00. 

CRITICAL     NOTICES. 

•'I\Ir.  Stoddard  is  a  veiy  graceful  writer:  his  fancy  is  delicate,  but  never  offnds  by 
puerility,  and  ihe  reader  cannot  look  through  the  volume  without- being  struck  by  il-e 
wide  range  of  his  muse." — The  Christian  at  Work. 

"  In  an  examination  of  this  large  and  superb  volume,  one  remarks  the  uncommon 
versatility  of  measure,  which  a  careful  readmg  proves  united  with  uniformity  of  ease  an  1 
harmony,  the  thought  seeming  to  be  poured  out  as  musically  in  one  form  as  another." — 
The  Literary  World. 

'•As  we  turn  these  clean  pages,  we  read  again  some  of  the  sweetest  songs  that  have 
been  written  in  our  time,  songs  of  gaiety  or  of  sadness,  but  songs  always  natural  and 
having  in  them  the  indefinable  quality  of  genius.  Whatever  it  is,  the  songs  are  gems  cut 
with  an  art  nearly  faultless  and  sparkling  with  an  inborn  {nstre." — Hart  ford  Courant. 

"The  quantity  of  poetical  work  Mr.  Stoddard  has  done  is  no  less  remarkable  than 
its  fine  quality.  He  is  never  careless,  never  writes  unless  he  has  something  to  say,  never 
says  it  unless  with  genuine  poetic  taste  and  tenderness.  His  works  amply  deserve  the 
beautiful  setting  they  have  been  vouchsafed  in  this  volume." — Boston  Saturday 
Evening  Gazette. 

"The  original  power,  deep  sentiment,  tragic  pathos,  and  admirable  artistic  execution 
of  Mr.  Stoddard's  poems,  give  them  the  assurance  of  a  long  date  in  the  higher  literature 
of  his  country.  He  may  claim  recognition  among  the  supreme  poets  of  the  land  without 
challenge  or  doubt.  His  progress  from  the  beginning  has  been  as  conspicuous  as  his 
genius  is  exquisite  and  rare.  His  fame  reposes  on  true  excellence  in  the  poetic  art,  which 
is  the  most  certain  passport  to  perennial  renown." — N.  Y.  Tribune. 

"  All  this  is  only  saying,  in  another  way,  that  Mr.  Stoddard  is  a  poet  by  nature  and 
not  by  mere  choice.  His  poems  have  been  the  spontaneous  expressions  of  a  deeply 
poetic  nature.  They  have  been  written  because  the  poet  has  had  need  of  poetic  utterance, 
because  he  has  had  something  to  say  that  was  pi)etic  in  substance.  The  form  of 
the  utterance,  metre,  the  imagery,  and  the  words,  have  been  chosen  simply  for  their 
fitness  to  give  adequate  expression  to  the  thought  and  mood  of  the  poet,  and  without 
care  upon  his  part,  apparently,  for  any  little  prettines»;s  of  their  own.  It  is  thus  that  a 
strong  man  of  rugged  but  tender  nature  writes  poetry." — N.  Y.  Eveni?tg  Post. 


*j^  For    sale    by    all    booksellers,    or    se?tt,  post-paid,  upon   receipl    of 
frice,  by 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S    SONS,  Publishers, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


The  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,  as  Illustrated  br 

THE  RELIGION  OF 

ANCIENT  EGYPT. 

By  P.  LE    PAGE    RENOUF. 

(The  Hibbert  Lectures  for  iSjg.J 


One  volume,   12mo,       -------       $l.SO 

M.  Le  Page  Renouf's  great  reputation  as  an  Egyptologist  led  to  his 
selection  to  deliver  the  second  course  of  the  already  celebrated  Hibbert 
series.  His  lectures  are  the  fit  companions  of  Professor  Muller's,  both  in 
learning  and  in  interest.  The  glimpses  laboriously  gained  by  the  aid  of 
long  undeciphered  hieroglyphics  into  one  of  the  most  mystical  and  profound 
of  all  the  ancient  beliefs,  have  always  had  a  special  fascination  ;  and  the 
time  has  now  come  when  it  is  possible  to  join  their  results  into  a  fairly 
complete  picture.  Done  as  this  is  by  M.  Renouf,  with  a  certain  French 
vividness  and  clearness,  it  has  a  very  unusual,  and,  indeed,  unique  interest. 


CRITICAL    NOTICES. 

"The  narrative  is  so  well  put  together,  the  chain  of  reasoning  and 
inference  so  obvious,  and  the  illustration  so  apt,  that  the  general  reader 
can  go  through  it  with  unabated  interest." — Hartford  Post. 

"  No  one  can  rise  from  reading  this  book,  in  which,  by  the  way,  the 
author  is  careful  about  drawing  his  conclusions,  without  having  increased 
respect  for  the  religion  of  ancient  Egypt,  and  hardly  less  than  admiration 
for  its  ethical  system." — The  Churchman. 

"  These  lectures  are  invaluable  to  students  of  Egyptology,  and  as  the 
religion  of  ancient  Egypt  stands  alone  and  unconnected  with  other  religions, 
except  those  which  have  been  modified  by  it,  itself  being  apparently  original 
and  underived,  they  should  be  highly  interesting  to  all  students  of  religious 
history.  .  ,  .  It  is  impossible  in  a  brief  notice  to  convey  an  adequate 
idea  of  Professor  Renouf  s  admirable  lectures." — N.  V.   World. 

"  The  present  work  forms  a  remarkably  intelligent  and  acutely  critical 
contribution  to  the  history  of  the  origin  and  growth  of  religion,  as  illustrated 
by  the  religion  of  ancient  Egypt.  As  a  specialist,  Professor  Renouf  is  able 
to  bring  forth  much  information  not  ordinarily  accessible  to  the  general 
reader,  and  this  he  does  in  such  a  carefully  digested  form  as  to  make  the 
work  entertaining  and  instructive  in  the  highest  degree." — Boston  Courier. 


*.55.*  For    sale    by    all    booksellers,    or  sent,    post-paid,  upon    receipt    of 
price,  by 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  Publishers, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


Men  and  Books; 

OR,    STUDIES    IN     HOMILETICS. 

Lectures  Introductory  to  the  "Theory  of  Preaching." 
By  Professor  AUSTIN  PHELPS,  D.D. 


One   Volume.      Cro^A^n   Svo.  -  -  $2.00 


Professor  Phelps'  second  volume  of  lectures  is  more  popular  and  gen- 
eral in  its  application  than  "  The  Theory  of  Preaching."  It  is  devoted  to 
a  discussion  of  the  sources  of  culture  and  power  in  the  profession  of  the 
pulpit,  its  power  to  absorb  and  appropriate  to  its  ow^n  uses  the  world  of 
real  life  in  the  present,  and  the  world  of  the  past,  as  it  lives  in  books. 

There  is  but  little  in  the  volume  that  is  not  just  as  valuable  to  all 
students  looking  forward  to  a  learned  profession  as  to  theological  students, 
and  the  charm  of  the  style  and  the  lofty  tone  of  the  book  make  it  difficult 
to  lay  it  down  when  it  is  once  taken  up. 


"It  is  a  book  obviously  free  from  all  paddins:.  It  is  a  Ih'e  boolr,  animated  as  well 
as  sound  and  instructive,  in  which  conventionalities  are  brushed  aside,  and  the  author 
goes  straight  to  the  marrow  of  the  subject.  No  minister  can  read  it  without  being  waked 
up  to  a  higher  conception  of  the  possibilities  of  his  caUing." 

— Professor  George  P.  Fisher. 

*'  It  is  one  of  the  most  helpful  books  in  the  interests  of  self-culture  that  has  ever  been 
written.  While  specially  nitcnde  1  for  young  clergymen,  it  is  almost  equally  well  adapted 
for  students  in  all  the  liberal  professions." — Standard  of  the  Cross. 

"We  are  sure  that  no  minister  or  candidate  for  the  ministry  can  read  it  without  profit. 
It  is  a  tonic  for  one's  mind  to  read  a  book  so  laden  with  thought  and  suggestion,  and 
written  in  a  style  so  fresh,  strong  and  bracing." — Boston   Watchman. 

"  Viewedin  this  light,  for  their  orderly  and  wise  and  rich  suggestiveness,  the-^e  lec- 
ture- of  .Professor  Phelps  are  of  simply  incomparable  merit.  Every  page  is  crowded  with 
observations  and  suggestions  of  striking  pertinence  and  force,  and  of  that  kind  of  wisdom 
which  touclies  the  roots  of  a  matter.  Should  one  begin  to  make  quotations  illustrative  of 
this  remark,  there  would  be  no  end  of  them.  While  the  book  is  meant  spe<:ially  for  the 
preacier,  so  rich  is  it  in  sase  remark,  in  acute  discernment,  in  penetrating  observation  of 
how  m-n  are  most  apt  to  be  influenced,  and  what  are  the  most  telling  qualities  in  the  va- 
rious forms  of  literary  expression,  it  must  iiecome  a  favorite  treatise  with  the  best  minds  in 
all  the  other  professions.  The  author  is,  in  a  very  high  sense  of  the  term,  an  artist,  as  for 
a  quarter  of  a  century  he  has  been  one  of  the  most  skiilful  instructors  of  young  men  in 
that  which  is  the  noblest  of  all  the  arts." — Chicago  Advance. 


^^  For   sale    by  all    booksellers,    or  sent.,  post-paid,    upon    receipt  of 
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CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  Publishers, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


The 


Conflict  of  Christianity 

WITH    HEATHEf^lSM. 

By  DR.    GERHARD     UHLHORN. 

TRA  NSLA  TED     B  Y 
PROF.  EGBERT    C.  SMYTH    and    REV.  C.  J.  H.  ROPES. 


One    Volume,    Crown    8vo,   $2.50. 

This  volume  describes  with  extraordinary  vividness  and  spirit  the 
religious  and  moral  condition  of  the  Pagan  world,  the  rise  and  spiead 
of  Christianity,  its  conflict  with  heathenism,  and  its  final  victory.  The^e 
is  no  work  that  portrays  the  heroic  age  of  the  ancient  church  with  equal 
spirit,  elegance,  and  incisive  power.  The  author  has  made  thorough  and 
independent  study  both  of  the  early  Christian  literature  and  also  of  the 
contemporary  records  of  classic  heathenism. 


CRITBCAIi     NOTICES. 

"  It  is  easy  to  see  why  this  volume  is  so  highly  esteemed.  It  is 
systematic,  thorough,  and  concise.  But  its  power  is  in  the  wide  mental 
vision  and  well-balanced  imagination  of  the  author,  which  enable  him  to 
reconstruct  the  scenes  of  ancient  history.  An  e.xceptional  clearness  and 
force  mark  his  style." — Boston  Advertiser. 

"  One  might  read  many  books  without  obtaining  more  than  a  fraction 
of  the  profitable  information  here  conveyed  ;  and  he  might  search  a  long 
time  before  finding  one  which  would  so  thoroughly  fi.x  his  attention  and 
command  his  interest." — P/ii/.   S.  S.    Times. 

"Dr.  Uhlhorn  has  described  the  great  conflict  with  the  power  of  a 
master.  His  style  is  strong  and  attractive,  his  descriptions  vivid  and 
graphic,  his  illustrations  highly  colored,  and  his  presentation  of  the  subject 
earnest  and  effective," — Providence  Journal. 

"  The  work  is  marked  for  its  broad  humanitarian  views,  its  learning;, 
and  the  wide  discretion  in  selecting  from  the  great  field  the  points  of 
deepest  interest." — Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

"This  is  one  of  those  clear,  strong,  thorough-going  books  which  are 
a  scholar's  (lQ\\^i." —Hartford  Religious  Herald. 


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^rice^   by 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS, 

Nos.  743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


AUTHORIZED    AMERICAN    EDITION, 


(^\m\m  InxMWions : 

ESSAYS    ON    ECCLESIASTICAL    SUBJECTS. 
By  A.    P.   STANLEY,   D.D., 

Laie  Dean  of  Westminster. 

One  vol.,cro'wn  8vo,  Library  Edition,  $2.50;  Students'  Edition,  76c, 

The  work  includes  chapters  upon  Baptism ,  the  Eucharist,  the  Euchar- 
ist in  the  Early  Church,  Eucharistic  Sacrifice,  the  Real  Presence,  the 
Body  and  Blood  of  Christ,  Absolution,  Ecclesiastical  Vestments,  Basilicas, 
the  Pope,  the  Litany,  and  the  Belief  of  the  Early  Christians. 


*' They  have  all  an  antiquarian,  historical,  and  practical  interest,  and 
are  treated  in  a  very  liberal  and  very  attractive  style.  Dean  Stanley  is  a 
genius  as  well  as  a  scholar,  and  has  a  rare  power  of  word-painting.  His 
History  of  the  Jewish  Church  and  of  the  Eastern  Chtirch  are  as  inter- 
esting and  entertaining  as  a  novel.  He  always  seizes  on  the  most  salient 
points,  and  gives  them  an  artistic  finish.  He  avoids  all  pedantry  of  learn- 
ing, and  all  tedious  details." — Dr.  Schaff  in  The  Critic. 


DEAN    STANLEY'S    OTHEPi   WORKS. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWISH 

Church.     With  maps  and  plans. 

Vol.  I.  FROM  ABRAHAM  TO 
Samuel.     Crown  Svo,  $2.50. 

Vol.  II  FROM  SAMUEL  TO  THE 
Captivity.     Crown  Svo,  $2.50. 

Vol.  III.  FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY 
to  the  Christian  Era.  With  maps. 
Crown  Svo,  $2.50. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHURCH 
of  Scotland.     Svo,  I1.50. 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    EAST- 

ern  Church.  With  an  Introduction 
on  the  study  of  Ecclesiastical  History. 
Crown  Svo,    $2.50. 

WESTMINSTER  EDITION  OF 
the  History  of  the  Jewish  Church. 

Handsomely  printed  on  superfine  paper, 
and  tastefully  bound.  Three  vols.,  Svo. 
(Sold  in  sets  only.)     $9.00. 

THE  LIFE  AND  CORRESPCND- 
ence  of  Thomas  Arnold,  D.D.,  late 
Head  Master  of  Rugby  School.  2  vols, 
in  one.     Crown  Svo,  ^2.50. 


■TT 

price,  by 


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'^A    GREAT    SOUL'S    GREAT    THOUGHTS,** 

UNIFORM   EDITION 

OF  THE  SELECT  WORKS  OF 

HORACE  BUSHNELL,  D.D. 


Hiacb.    X    vol.    ISnao,    per    vol.    ^1.50, 


COMPLETE  IN  ELEVEN  VOLUMES. 


Christian   Nurture. 
Sermons  for  the   New  Life. 
Christ  and   his  Salvation. 
Sermons  on  Living  Subjects. 
Work  and   Play. 


Vicarious  Sacrifice.    Vol.  I. 
Vicarious  Sacrifice.     Vol,   H. 
Nature  and   the  Supernatural. 
God  in  Christ. 
Building  Eras. 


Moral  Uses  of  Dark  Things, 


"The  gathered  writings  of  one  of  the  most  original  and  thoughtful 
of  the  American  divines  of  his  generation,  and  one  who  has  left  as  distinct 
an  impression  of  himself  upon  the  minds,  at  least,  of  the  present  generation 
of  Congregational  ministers  as  any  other  man  of  his  day." — Zioii's  Herald, 

"  His  writings  have  attracted  considerable  attention  from  the  bold  and 
original  manner  in  which  he  has  presented  views  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
Calvinistic  faith.     No  well-furnished  library  will  be  without  them," 

— Hartford  Religions  Herald. 

"There  is  a  vivacity  and  grace  about  everything  he  has  written  which 
have  secured  him  multitudes  of  readers  even  among  those  who  do  not,  by 
any  means,  accept  his  views." — Presbyterian  Ba7iJier. 

"  This  series  occupies  a  place  in  theological  literature  that  is  filled  by 
no  other.  Dr.  Bushnell's  highest  qualities  as  a  thinker  and  writer  are 
nowhere  better  brought  out."  —  The  Advance. 


*^*  For  sale   by  all    booksellers^    or  sent^   post-paid^    upon    receipt  of 
price,  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  Publishers, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


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Princeton   Theological   Seminary   Libraries 


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